I have never been anywhere with so many warning signs on the walls. They instruct the use of protective overalls, gloves and a respirator. I am wearing none of these.

There is also, I am informed, a risk of explosion. Not to mention the warning notices posted outside about venomous snakes and spiders.

In this room, at Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, engineers mix together the ingredients for solid rocket fuel.

“It’s exactly like baking a cake,” says David Quancard, chief operating officer for ArianeGroup, a joint partner – along with Italian company Avio – in this European rocket fuel factory. “It starts as a liquid and then you cook it.”

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Unlike your average cake, the mixing process is so hazardous that it takes place behind thick concrete walls in an isolated building surrounded by tropical jungle. Operations are controlled remotely from a blockhouse several hundred metres away, and the whole area is enclosed by security fences, barbed wire and watchtowers.

Solid fuel rockets are typically used in missiles, such as the Trident ICBM or the French Exocet, and as boosters for larger launchers, like the ones strapped to the Space Shuttle.

The fuel manufactured here at the Kourou spaceport will power two different rockets: the boosters for the giant Ariane 5 launcher, designed for large spacecraft such as communications satellites and deep space science missions, and the first three stages of the 30m-high (100ft) Vega rocket – used to lift smaller payloads into low Earth orbit.