Traffic flows smoothly until it doesn’t; one stalled car forces a tap on the brakes, then a chain reaction of red lights turns what was a smooth commute into a snarl of lights, steel, and growing frustration. There’s no warning or escape lane, just momentum meeting metal.
Above our Earth, something similar keeps building speed.
From the ground, it’s a peaceful scene, while up close, it’s crowded, chaotic, and totally unforgiving. There are over 27,000 tracked objects that whip around the planet at roughly 17,500 miles per hour, with millions more too small to track. One bolt from any one of the derelict crafts strikes with the force of a hand grenade, and a paint fleck shatters windows.
Whatever margin for error that existed vanished years ago.
Close Calls Keep Stacking Up
An orbital emergency in 2025 forced evasive action after debris drifted into an active flight path, causing astronauts to seal hatches, adjust trajectories, and, agonizingly, wait. That scenario became the latest episode of a long list of near misses involving research platforms, satellites, and crewed missions.
In recent years, NASA has sounded the alarm about the surge in conjunction alerts — when objects pass dangerously close to something, potentially causing disastrous results. The U.S. Space Force tracks debris larger than a softball, but smaller fragments are just as dangerous. Operators call out warnings, recalculate paths, and hope computers get things right.
In human history, hope has never been enough of a safety plan.
Weapon Tests Turned Orbit Hostile
Using an anti-satellite missile, Russia destroyed one of its own satellites, and the 2021 explosion created over 1,500 trackable fragments and an unknown number of smaller ones, several of which passed near the International Space Station, forcing its crew to shelter.
“Dangerous and irresponsible behavior jeopardizes the long-term sustainability of outer space and clearly demonstrates that Russia’s claims of opposing the weapons and weaponization of space are disingenuous and hypocritical,” [Former U.S. Department of State spokesperson Ned] Price said, [in 2022].
“The United States will work with our allies and partners to respond to Russia’s irresponsible act,” Price added. “We are going to be working with allies and partners around the world to make very clear that this behavior is not something the United States will tolerate.”
Every fragment from the Russian satellite still circles the planet; none of those pieces decay quickly, and they definitely aren’t worried about the possibility of hitting civilian, commercial, or scientific targets.
Think about it: In a situation like nuclear fallout, the results of a missile strike created hazards that will last for many years.
When Collisions Breed Collisions
All that space junk provides an example, of sorts, of the Law of Diminishing Returns, where one side increases in numbers while the other remains relatively constant. In our example, there’s more debris created than what can be cleared, a chain reaction that threatens permanent loss of access to low Earth orbit.
That’s no small thing: Weather forecasting degrades, GPS isn’t nearly as accurate, communications crackle, bank systems lose their precise time signals, emergency responders lose their eyes in the skies, and military coordination weakens.
Our modern life depends on satellites, just as cities once depended on railroads.
Everything slows when tracks vanish.
A Clearer Danger Than Climate Models
Debates on climate change lasts decades, with thousands of incorrect projects added on. Orbital debris, however, works through impact, causing immediate, visible, and permanent damage.
A single collision ereases billion-dollar infrastructure in fractions of seconds.
Offset programs can’t repair shattered satellites, and no summit reassembles a debris cloud after it spreads. Prevention costs money, and cleanup costs more, but doing nothing costs us everything.
Responsibility Keeps Drifting
Satellite launches keep multiplying: Private firms chase market shares, governments test weapons, accountability floats away, while international guidelines lack teeth.
Leaders describe low Earth orbit as a contested domain, and speak openly about space deterrence. Orbit ends up being treated like territory instead of shared infrastructure.
Down on terra firma, highways crumble when they’re not maintained, orbit faces the same neglect, and where once wreckage spreads, repairs aren’t possible.
Final Thoughts
Traffic jams get worse when drivers pretend momentum will be their saving grace. Above the Earth, momentum only multiplies damage, because every ignored warning adds another dangerous shard, a gamble, an obstacle racing at incredible speeds.
There’s no shoulder, tow truck, or rewind in orbit. Once the metal meets another metal at orbital speed, it adds to a pileup that never gets cleared.
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