If you keep in mind that the debris field in this picture covers the area from low earth orbit (100 – 1,240 miles) out to a distance of about 22,240 miles above Earth then it would not seem to be so densely packed as depicted here. In that regard I see your point. It is difficult to show the true scale of something of this size.

I’ve searched for some hard numbers but can’t find anything except this:
as of June 21 2000 (pretty dated), NASA counted 8,927 man-made objects (these are only those objects large enough to be seen – I have seen more current estimates of up to 50,000 pieces); some are there more or less permanently. http://www.space.com/spacewatch/space_junk.html

I realize that thi...

If you keep in mind that the debris field in this picture covers the area from low earth orbit (100 – 1,240 miles) out to a distance of about 22,240 miles above Earth then it would not seem to be so densely packed as depicted here. In that regard I see your point. It is difficult to show the true scale of something of this size.

I’ve searched for some hard numbers but can’t find anything except this:
as of June 21 2000 (pretty dated), NASA counted 8,927 man-made objects (these are only those objects large enough to be seen – I have seen more current estimates of up to 50,000 pieces); some are there more or less permanently. http://www.space.com/spacewatch/space_junk.html

I realize that this cannot offer any comparison to the picture because I don’t know what 8,927 or 50,000 pieces would look like. But I do know space debris is a very real problem for any space vehicle passing through it.

As always, I welcome any sources you may have that would give a better perspective.