Where do you think the "gravitational pull of the earth" ends? Hint: the moon is inside the gravitational pull of the earth... The danger is that things in orbit have velocity. A lot of velocity. Taking that nice F=mv^2 equation in mind you can imagine what would happen if a piece of space junk were to hit something we care about (or hit something we don't care about and create a lot more little pieces of junk that are now spreading out to cause more mayhem.) Space is big, and earth orbit is also a very big place, but there is still a lot of junk whizzing around up there and increasing the odds that something you forgot about will hit something you care about is counter-productive.

> can you please explain why it would be bad to "pollute" space? Do things fall back into the atmosphere and burn up and sprinkle ash back onto the earth?

The risk of space junk falling on people is tiny. The chief concern is around collisions in orbit. Worst case: "collisions between objects could cause a cascade where each collision generates space debris that increases the likelihood of further collisions," which could create a "distribution of debris in orbit [that] could render space activities and the use of satellites in specific orbital ranges unfeasible for many generations" [1].

These regulations are about protecting affordable access to space, by managing the risk of collisions.

(Eventually, yes, most things will fall down or burn up or drift away. But that process can take years if not millennia.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome

Objects can stay in orbit for a long time and become dangerous for other objects there. Look up Kessler Syndrome.

Generally, because the debris might hit other stuff and break it.

Space is big, but too much stuff goes into very similar orbits.

I’am positive someone expressed that exact sentiment about the ocean at some point. I had a Botany professor who always used to say “there is no such place as away”.

One of my favorite "slice of life" anime series out there is PlanetES[1]

It does a great job of illustrating the potential impact of this on humanity in the not too distant future, and some of the jobs it creates (space trash collectors).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes

Things don't really leave the gravitational pull of the earth -- it's still on the order of 9m/s^2 in low earth orbit. In order for things to stay up, they've got to be moving around 9 km/s sideways -- essentially constantly falling towards earth, but going fast enough sideways to miss.

The issue is that at those speeds, anything bigger than a fleck of paint hitting anything else will turn both things into a bunch of tiny chunks. See [1] for an example of two satellites colliding.

The big fear is that if you get enough stuff up there, even if you control most of it, one collision would be enough to trigger a chain reaction. [2]

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome

The concern is the precedent. If we let people just put up anything we could end up with (worst case) Kessler syndrome.

The concern, as expressed by the FCC, is that the satellites are so small they are hard for U.S. Space Command to track them. Which means we could approve a rocket launch where one of these rapid little beasties knocks out a window or causes other catastrophic damage because we didn't know where it was precisely.

And you could argue it's too small to do damage (not true) or to low to be a real concern (maybe true), but the precedent is dangerous to allow.

The great thing about small satellites is that they are light and cheap and easy to launch. However, once they get to space, they take up just as much room as everything else: one orbit. Space isn’t a parking lot where you can park the smaller things closer together, and not being able to track the small satellites just makes that problem worse.

okay, but what is your point?