For Lottie Williams, the cosmic lottery hit a jackpot on a cool
Tulsa, Oklahoma, morning in 1997. Soon after witnessing a
satellite breaking up in the atmosphere during her early morning
walk, Williams entered the history books as the first, and only,
person on record to be hit by falling space junk. The feather-
light piece of scalded shielding from what is believed to be a
Delta rocket booster lightly tapped her shoulder with no ill
effect. Nearly all the clutter of space travel now hangs above
us at distances as far as 22,500 miles (36,200 kilometers) and
as near as 150 miles (240 kilometers) from Earth, and some of it
has long outlived its usefulness. The oldest known object is the
1958 Vanguard I research satellite, which ceased all functions
in 1964 and has since orbited the globe nearly 194,000 times.
Orbital debris, the technical term for nonfunctional and human-
made space junk, includes not only whole, abandoned satellites,
but also pieces of broken satellites, deployed rocket bodies,
human waste, and