Another amazingly horrifying example is Project West Ford[0] in 1963 which dispersed 480 000 000 copper needles at an altitude of ~3500 km to create an artificial ionosphere facilitating military communications.
Scroll down to page three of: https://www.orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/quarterly-news/pdfs/o...
Who thought it would be a great, timeless idea to dump a bunch of copper wire strands at 3.5 Mm? Oh, it was that pinhead: Walter E. Morrow. Thanks for that military-industrial complex contribution to littering. Let's stick a Tesla, Lego, and some dead people in space while we're at it. We did that already too? Why don't you tell me these things? Throw me a frickin bone here, people. Maybe we should think carefully about permanent space garbage or space sunshades before rolling with what seems like a brilliant technical solution?