Trashtronauts: "Space is full of crap"

Since the 1950s, the world's launched about 6,000 satellites, of which only 13 percent are still operational.

With all this stuff shooting around at thousands of miles an hour, it's no surprise collisions have occurred, but it seems scientists failed to adequately plan for this growing influx of space garbage.

Not surprisingly, the European Space Agency recently reported the obvious: space trash is becoming a "severe problem."

"While the idea of bringing back used stages and satellites back to Earth may seem too expensive, in the long run it's clear that leaving all this trash up there is going to have huge consequences to the development of space exploration and colonization. Those concepts may still seem science fiction for many, but as these simulations show, the current and future problem is very real, and could be extremely dangerous."