On the Space Activities at the Baikonur Cosmodrome An Approach to an Integrated Environmental Assessment
Keywords:
DPSIR, Integrated Environmental Assessment, Space activities, Rocket fuel, 1,1-dimethyl hydrazine, Heptyl, Transformation products.Abstract
An integrated environmental assessment of the space activities at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in
Kazakhstan is presented applying the DPSIR (Driving forces, Pressures, State, Impacts, Responses)
framework. It is verified that both nationally and internationally based driving forces prevail comprising
scientific, commercial and economic factors. The main pressures to the environment and thus eventually to
man are of chemical nature although also physical pressures are disclosed. Studies based on several field trips
and subsequent chemical and biological analyses have disclosed severe alterations of the environment and
further suggest an increased level of diseases among residents close to the fall of the separated burned-out
rocket stages. The impacts to the environment and thus to humans due to direct or indirect contact with
residual rocket fuel and its transformation products have been disclosed and preliminary theoretical studies
suggest severe adverse effects from a series of these compounds to environmental species as well as to humans.
The paper discusses possible responses to diminish and eventually eliminate the undesired impact to
environment and humans by residual rocket fuel and its transformation products.
