Space debris is accumulating and becoming a large problem for anything present in the far reaches of the atmosphere. This is because of the lack of regulation for how the materials sent up there should be disposed and how it degrades. As a result, Panek says that "only about one in seven is currently operational, and in addition to the satellites that are no longer working, there's also hundreds of thousands of marble-sized debris and millions of paint chip-sized debris that are also orbiting around the Earth." This means that anything up there, such as satellites or rockets, are at risk of damage. Panek then presents ideas to clean up the space debris, such as the UK's satellite designed to burn up and dispose itself at the end of its life span. She then discusses that we need to innovate the way to clean up the orbits to be able to make way for space exploration.
I think this is a very important factor in the use of higher orbits and even making our way out to space travel and exploration. With the debris not being dealt with and more and more satellites being sent up there and not moved out of the way, this means that the orbits are a minefield. Even if we do not need the space for travel and manned missions, the satellites providing services such as GPS and other services could be affected and rendered inoperable due to the damage caused by debris.
