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MOSCOW, Jan. 13 (UPI) -- Russia's space agency has
established that space activities connected with the Baikonur
cosmodrome do not impact directly on the health of nearby residents.
The statement followed a report in the British weekly
science journal Nature that toxic rocket fuel is causing serious
illness among children living in Russia's Altai republic. The report
quoted a study made by Russian scientists that said child disorders
of the blood and endocrine glands in polluted areas are twice the
regional average.
Some of the territories located along the rockets' flight
trajectories are affected by the Semipalatinsk former nuclear
testing range, the agency said. Moreover, the people in these
regions are mostly poor.
At the same time, however, the agency confirmed that heptyl,
a substance used for space launches, harms the environment.
"There are no grounds for replacing the launchers' fuel with
another (kind of fuel), because other kinds of fuel also harm the
environment," the statement said.
Specialists from the space agency and representatives from
the space and rocket industries are conducting work to improve the
ecological characteristics of existing launch vehicles, the
statement said.
"Thus, in a Proton M (rocket), the amount of fuel left in
the separating sections has been considerably reduced," it added.
The Baikonur cosmodrome, 330 miles southwest of Astana, the
Kazakh capital, is now leased from Kazakhstan by the Russian
government.