ESA: Space debris

[Rothkko]

Space debris: evolution in pictures

Between the launch of Sputnik on 4 October 1957 and 1 January 2008, approximately 4600 launches have placed some 6000 satellites into orbit, of which about 400 are travelling beyond geostationary orbit or on interplanetary trajectories.

Today, it is estimated that only 800 satellites are operational - roughly 45 percent of these are both in LEO and GEO. Space debris comprise the ever-increasing amount of inactive space hardware in orbit around the Earth as well as fragments of spacecraft that have broken up, exploded or otherwise become abandoned. About 50 percent of all trackable objects are due to in-orbit explosion events (about 200) or collision events (less than 10).
http://www.esa.int/esaMI/ESOC/SEMN2VM5NDF_mg_3_s_b.html

Credit: ESA

When the first person dies on Earth as a result of space junk? When will scrap space?

[Chris Peterson]

When the first person dies on Earth as a result of space junk? When will scrap space?

There are still hundreds of natural meteorite falls for each piece of space junk that survives to the ground. And nobody has been killed by a meteorite.

The threat posed by space junk isn't on the ground, but in space. As it accumulates, it becomes an increasing risk to the space assets our society is so dependent on.

[Rothkko]

It must be only a sensation caused by the recreated image, but there seems to be a lot of crap up there (and perhaps more who have to worry are those who are up there), but if an exponential increase in coming decades, you can open the betting period.
Debe ser sólo una impresión por la imagen recreada, pero parece que hay mucha ****** ahí arriba (y quizás quienes más tengan que preocuparse sean los que están ahí arriba), pero si se produce un incremento exponencial en las próximas décadas, se puede abrir el período de apuestas.

[Chris Peterson]

It must be only a sensation caused by the recreated image, but there seems to be a lot of crap up there (and perhaps more who have to worry are those who are up there), but if an exponential increase in coming decades, you can open the betting period.

The image fails in the same way that an image of a galaxy of globular cluster fails: when presented at a scale that allows the entire field to be viewed, there's no way to represent how tiny the component objects (space junk or stars) actually are. In all these cases, we are essentially viewing empty space.

An exponential increase in space junk caused by runaway collisions won't result in any significant risk to us on the ground, but would be a disaster for our use of low Earth orbits.

[Rothkko]

but would be a disaster for our use of low Earth orbits.

Must have thought to include an element of self-destruction to which we send up (explosion, them out of orbit, ...) a scrap dealer or take the leap into space.
Habría que pensar entonces en incluir un elemento de autodestrucción a lo que enviemos arriba (explosion, sacarlos de orbita, ...) o que algún chatarrero dé el salto al espacio.