Disease Fears On Rockets' Path

In the shadow of the Altai mountains lies some of the most remote and beautiful countryside in all of Russia — and an increasing amount of potentially deadly debris from rockets flying overhead on their way to orbit.

CBS News Correspondent Elizabeth Palmer reports the rockets blast off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Russia's version of Cape Canaveral, 800 miles to the east and across the border in Kazakhstan.

The rockets' boosters come off over Altai, in Southern Siberia. They're supposed to land harmlessly in an uninhabited area but they often fall short of the target.

Last year, two pieces landed in Alexander Petrov's pasture.

"This thing almost hit my house," he says.

But the pieces that Petrov found are small, compared to whole rocket boosters people have discovered nearby.

Incredibly, no one has been killed yet by these chunks of metal, but the people of this region are convinced they're dying anyway from another kind of space fallout — rocket fuel that is sprayed into the air and seeps into the water.

Many Russian rockets are powered with a fuel called dimethyl hydrazine, which the Environmental Defense Fund reports is a carcinogen and toxic to the skin, sense organs, liver, respiratory system, cardiovascular system and nervous system. The EDF ranks it among the worst 10 percent of chemicals for its effects on humans and the environment.

American rockets tend to be powered by hydrogen and oxygen fuels, as well as aluminum perchlorate, an explosive chemical whose health effects, particularly as a carcinogen, are still under study, according to the EPA.

In Altai, almost everyone has an ailment, from skin rashes that just won't heal, to cancer and thyroid disorders. Birth defects are 10 times higher than the national average.

Local doctors suspect toxic chemicals in unburned rocket fuel are to blame.

The Russian government tells villagers to stay indoors for 3 days after each launch, but that's impossible, especially for children who have to go to school.

Some of the young residents say they are literally losing their minds.

"We all have problems with our memories now," says Viktoria Batalina, an 11th grader. "We have to read and reread our assignments. It's like we have holes in our heads."

Weekly doses of vitamins and iodine are the only thing the Russian government provides to stave off illness.

In spite of convincing medical evidence, Russia's Space Agency denies its rockets are poisoning Altai. The agency's ecologist, Vitaly Sambros, blames heavy metals in the soil and nuclear testing nearby for conditions in the region.

The agency's reticence to admit a problem might be forced by economic necessity: The cash-strapped Russians want to increase commercial rocket launches and expand space tourism.

Research by the Pacific Environment and Resources Center indicates that launching rockets from Baikonur is one-half as expensive as from other Russian sites. Logs suggest at leas 30 rockets were launched from Baikonur last year.

But more rockets overhead, say the villagers, mean more victims below, paying for Russia's space program with their health.

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