High above the English countryside, scientists at the Chilbolton Observatory keep vigil over a sky increasingly crowded with the wreckage of human ambition — 46,000 pieces of orbital debris moving at lethal speeds among 14,000 active satellites, with 1.7 million more planned. Britain has committed £85 million to this quiet, essential work, understanding that the infrastructure threading through low Earth orbit now sustains a fifth of its economy. The danger is not merely technical: scientists warn that a single cascade of collisions could render entire orbital zones permanently uninhabitable,