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Originally posted by Volv
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Originally posted by CookieRevised
tell that to the satelite builders and astronauts who constantly need to repear satelites because stuff flies into it constantly......
Not to say that you're incorrect (as I dont know too much on the particles-in-space topic), but a that is due to the satellites colliding with particles in the outer atmosphere of the Earth as opposed to particles in 'empty space'. Check out Orbital Decay
Although it is very true that their is much debris in the outer atmosphere of Earth and that this is a very critical area to be in, there is also a lot of stuff (meteoroids, dust and other particles, ice, etc) floating in space and which could collide with (futur) space ships (which includes high orbit satellites, space shuttle, space station, but also unmanned explorer crafts to other planets, etc).
eg: although the Hubble telescope has had its share of damage from debris, it also has hundreds of small craters in it from meteoroids, some big enough for concearn and some even damaged the equipment.
Space is far from empty (look at the thousands of craters on space objects, eg: moon, but also planets and other objects). The thing they say is that because of the nature of the universe and the vastness, you could consider it mostly empty. But that doesn't mean the chance of a collisions is as good as null. Because you could easly turn it around too. Because the vastness of the universe, you have a unlimited amount of stuff you could collide into (especially when considering space travel to distance planets).
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