From a quiet corner of southern England, scientists peer upward into an orbital environment that humanity has steadily filled with the wreckage of its own ambitions. The Chilbolton Observatory now stands as a sentinel over more than 46,000 pieces of debris circling Earth, a consequence of decades of space activity that threatens the very satellites modern civilization depends upon. As commercial ventures prepare to launch millions more objects into an already crowded sky, the ancient human impulse to reach beyond the horizon confronts the finite nature of the space just above it.