Haha true. Its already crowded up there
When was it... just last year?... when an American and a Russian satellite actually
did collide? And we keep adding even
more space junk up there!
Perhaps this is the legacy of shortsightedness. Way, way, way back in the day, no one imagined that satellite overcrowding could be possible, so no means whatsoever was designed to do something about expired satellites other than to just keep them orbiting until they either fell back to Earth in an uncontrolled reentry or (if they were positioned properly) moved out of Earth's orbit altogether (a rare event).
Sputnik fell back to Earth, but one of America's earliest artificial satellites is still circling the Earth after 40-some years, taking up valuable real estate.
In my opinion, it is downright irresponsible for satellites to be launched these days without a means of propulsion to send them farther away from Earth or send them in a controlled burn into the atmosphere when their missions are over. To just let them keep orbiting and orbiting ad nauseum as lifeless metal hunks is just going to be an invitation to disaster, especially since we keep launching more and more, not to mention the collision danger they pose to manned spacecraft.
