\But when you get about 20,000 miles away from earth (1/10th the way to the moon), there is almost NO junk, and the way to MArs, the Moon, or anyplace else is clear.
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mike1942-f say: Well, there were not "heaps of debris" orbiting earth when the Apollo missions were launched.
The ISS is in low earth orbit so much of the debris is higher up, but it is also maneuvered when needed to shift the orbit from the bigger more obnoxious stuff.
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Nikki say: the ideal of a perfect orbit is impossible, so the space station has maneuvering thrusters to move into a higher or lower orbit. the problem is mostly the space-junk, or the high number of communications satellites.
these 2-illustrations are near the bottom of this web-page. it expalins earth's current orits and the amount of debris-satellites.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Featur...
[1].Image of space junk in low Earth orbit.
Thousands of manmade objects—95 % of them “space junk”— occupy low Earth orbit. Each black dot in this image shows either a functioning satellite, an inactive satellite, or a piece of debris. Although the space near Earth looks crowded, each dot is much larger than the satellite or debris it represents, and collisions are extremely rare. (NASA )
[2].
Illustration of space junk in Geosynchronous orbit.
Orbiting objects are concentrated in low Earth orbit (nearly obscuring the Earth’s surface in this illustration) and geostationary orbit (revealed by the ring of satellites along the outer edges).
(NASA illustration courtesy Orbital Debris Program Office.)
https://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/
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Adam D say: To put it simply, space is big.
Think about how large the surface of our planet is. Any spherical shell (such as orbits at a particular height) would be even larger. The objects up there in orbit are currently on the order of hundreds of thousands, and they exist at a variety of orbit altitudes. We can track a lot of, and most satellites can make adjustments to dodge things. Impacts do happen, but it isn't a big swarm of garbage the way it is often depicted in fiction.
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