Why dont we bring old satellites back to earth

Arent we losing a small amount of resources for each one we dont bring back when theyre finished operating?

They are crapitalists

Satellites are old news. Now that the military have revealed their UAV's, commercial companies can invest in long duration UAV's, possibly blimp based which could remain stationary over land at 70,000 feet for months if not years. This has many advantages such as lower latency for the communication, a smaller service area allowing for reuse of frequencies in a nearby area, the ability to relocate, lower launch costs and the ability to bring the equipment down for updates and repairs.

The shuttle was supposed to bring back the satellites but the fact is, they could not plan a mission for the desired orbits and bring back a satellite, there's just too much space out there to maneuver through with the life support and fuel they had plus it costs too much to launch a shuttle ( it takes 30,000 people to recondition each orbiter for the next launch ).

The problem is that is it uneconomical. We would have to launch a separate rocket to bring down each one, and that could cost billions. Scientists are researching several ways to either "recycle" satellites (by cutting off their antenna dishes and attaching a micro-satellite [IN SPACE]), revive satellites, or economically eliminate satellites.

Purely economics! Once the satellite is old or not functioning any longer it is not worth the time or money to bring it back to Earth and dispose of it. I mean after all we send satellites up but after we just don't care about the damage they are doing when they are not of any value any longer!! We do tend to do this with a lot of things ;| SAD well my friend I hope your question is answered!! it is about Money!!! It's always about money!!1

Oh man I thought your question asked we do we bring back satellites back to earth I would have said scrape metal lol but here's why even a meteor the size of a jacked up truck would only be a pebble the time it reached the ground so imagine a satellite.

Old satellites are usually "de-orbited" so they'll burn up in the atmosphere instead of winding up as space debris.

What would you do with a pile of old electronics and aluminum? Recycle it?

The shuttle's brought back one that I know of; but, it's a very expensive undertaking - and cheaper to build new satellites than it is to retrieve old ones for repair.

It would consume more resources to run the retrieval mission than would be recovered by retrieving the satellite.

Not scoffing at all but it might be cheaper to raise the titanic