Space debris, artificial earth ring

Hi all. Was watching a programme last night presented by james May (think it was called 20th century) in the programme they talked about the artificial ring around the earth. This is made up of the following.

operational spacecraft — 7%
old spacecraft — 22%
rocket bodies — 17%
mission-related objects — 13%
miscellaneous fragments — 41%

the following link has an animation which shows the build up of this debris since 1957 up until 2000. I was shocked to see so much junk orbiting the earth.
here is the link www.esa.int...

Is it ok to litter space because there is so much of it? This debris also posses threats to space missions. Space Shuttle windscreens have been damaged by flecks of paint as small as 0.3 mm in size travelling at a mere 14 400 kph.

Just wondered what people thought about this.

cheers

I think it would be interesting to calculate the dimming effect caused by space debris.

Sri Oracle

Not to mention China intentionall fragging 'its obsolete weather sat' requiring change of orbit for ISS.

Wonder if SBA would grant me a loan to start Global Sanitation Commission Incorporated. Now that would be a job well worth going out on a limb for!