Thread by @PaulMMCooper

The Altai region of Central Asia seems at first to be a remote & peaceful place. But it also sits on the world's busiest flight path for space missions.

Here used-up rockets regularly crash to earth, & local people are left to salvage what they can of the wreckage.

The Altai mountain range sits right in the centre of Asia.

This is a rugged landscape that forms a junction between the snow forests of Sibera, the Kazakhstani steppes & the desert plateau of Mongolia.

Wild reindeer are found here, as well as tiny musk deer & brown bears that follow retreating snow fields in spring.

(Nature's Strongholds, by Laura Riley: books.google.co.uk/books?id=icMuB…)

But the Altai also sits downrange of the world's oldest & busiest spaceport.

This is the main launchpad for the Russian space programme, staging commercial, scientific & military launches, & the only remaining link to the International Space Station: the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

Built in 1955, Baikonur was the launch site for many landmark missions, including the launch of Sputnik & Yuri Gagarin's flight as the first man into space.

Since the retirement of the US shuttle programme, Russian Soyuz capsules launched here also resupply & re-man the ISS.

As spacecraft launch, they shed their booster rockets. But unlike the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Baikonur is as far from the ocean as you can get.

While NASA rockets land in the Atlantic, Russian Proton rockets fly another 600 miles after separation & crash in the Altai.

Locals here have gotten used to the sight of the spent rocket stages thundering down to earth.

They look like "an angry red eye in the night", one local says. When they land, they are like "a small earthquake".

(source: telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews…)

The Russian Federal Space Agency designates a narrow strip of land across the region in which the rocket stages are supposed to fall.

Residents within this zone are given 24 hours' notice of a launch, & it's only outside this zone that people can claim compensation for damages.

Incidents outside the zone aren't at all uncommon.

In 2008, a piece of debris measuring 4.5m in length even landed in a village, narrowly missing a house.

(photo: Jonas Bendiksen jonasbendiksen.com/Books/Satellit…)

Debris rains down here even when launches go to plan. But launches can also go wrong.

In 2011, an unmanned Soyuz capsule headed to the ISS failed & crashed into the Altai. The explosion shattered windows in the region, though no one was hurt.

(source: bbc.co.uk/news/science-e…)

Despite the dangers, local people have seized the opportunity that the falling rockets present.

They watch the sky with binoculars when a launch is scheduled, & then race to find the fallen section with horses or 4x4s.

(photo: Jonas Bendiksen jonasbendiksen.com/Books/Satellit…)

When they get there, they work to strip the rocket of its valuable light metal alloys like aluminium & titanium, & extract other worthwhile parts like copper wiring.

(photo: Jonas Bendiksen jonasbendiksen.com/Books/Satellit…)

It's dangerous work. Rocket sections are often still burning when they arrive, giving off ash & toxic smoke.

(photo: Jonas Bendiksen jonasbendiksen.com/Books/Satellit…)

Today, the precarious economic reality of the region means that scrapping the fallen sections of Russian rockets has become a lucrative & necessary trade for people living in the region.

(photo: Jonas Bendiksen jonasbendiksen.com/Books/Satellit…)

Villagers have even fashioned tools & farm implements from the metal salvaged from fallen rocket sections.

(photo: Jonas Bendiksen jonasbendiksen.com/Books/Satellit…)

But falling debris isn't the only danger posed by the rockets.

Toxic chemicals from the sections are thought to have leeched into the soil around crash sites, & have been linked to the deaths of cows & horses in the region.

The most feared of these is heptyl, a "supertoxic, nerve-paralysing and carcinogenic" component of rocket fuel.

Heptyl has been linked to birth defects, failed crops & even sightings of blind Siberian deer in the Altai forests.

(source: telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews…)

Although Russian government researchers deny any link between the rocket fuel & illnesses in the region, local doctors are adamant that it is having an effect.

Local people are currently campaigning to have the research made public.

(source: bbc.co.uk/news/world-eur…)

Today, the scattered debris of the Altai region reminds us of the divisions that exist between the rich nations of the world & its poorest, who we so often forget.

It reminds of the human cost of technological advancement, and asks us: who gets to decide this cost?

Some further reading:

- Sky Static, Anthony Milne (books.google.co.uk/books?id=hEqF8…)

- Nature's Strongholds, Laura Riley (books.google.co.uk/books?id=icMuB…)

For more on this region, please also check out the work of the incredible photographer Jonas Bendiksen here: jonasbendiksen.com

Thanks for listening! If you found this interesting, I've put together more of my research into ruined & abandoned places in this thread.

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