What is space junk?
Dmitri Kessel/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images The cover of LIFE magazine from Oct. 21, 1957, shows Smithsonian Observatory scientists working at M.I.T. in Cambridge to try to calculate Sputnik’s orbit.Space junk got its start in the middle of the twentieth century, at the very beginning of the space race. When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, the first satellite in history to go into orbit around the Earth, on Oct. 4, 1957, the world paid attention. Although the satellite was small by today’s standards — it was about the size of a beach ball — Sputnik still caused a great amount of fear among nations, especially the United States. Along with sparking the space race, the launch worried many Americans because of its association with the nuclear arms race. If the Soviets were capable of putting a satellite into space, they could also strap a nuclear bomb on top and reach a target in a matter of hours. Since this caught everyone off guard, several countries threw resources into space
