> Is it realistic to presume that space debris orbiting around the earth will only ever get worse, or will it effectively remain the same to some degree of consistency?
Debris in high orbits isn't a big issue; there's too much space. Debris in low orbits falls out of the sky on a timescale of ~decades, thanks to aerobraking. So it should be constant, given a constant inflow of debris...
However, that is only true so long as collisions remain rare. Once there's too much debris, Kessler syndrome will cause it to 'breed' and close the orbitals for decades.
The above also doesn't account for super-popular high orbits, i.e. geosynchronous. A sufficient amount of debris in that orbit could close off that one for millennia (or until cleaned), but at least there are alternatives.
Geosync orbits have a de-orbit requirement (at least US operations do). So they have to keep enough fuel to go into a higher orbit after their lifetime. This wasn't always the case but it is now.
Also Geo orbit (while popular) is only useful if you get a fairly large degree of it all to yourself. My current understanding (correct me if I'm wrong) is that most satellites operate at fairly large distances from each other in Geo about 0.5 degrees apart is normal. Mostly because the antennas sending signals from have a wide beam at the point they hit the satellite and affect adjacent satellites. So they have to distance the Adjacent satellites far enough apart so as to be effective in communications. This isn't a problem for different frequencies, so you might stack a K and C band satellite on top of each other. But most of the Geo beasts have full capacity for the spectrum they are legally allowed to use.
Also, I'm speaking strictly about COMM satellites. I haven't done any practical application on anything else.
Debris in high orbits isn't a big issue; there's too much space. Debris in low orbits falls out of the sky on a timescale of ~decades, thanks to aerobraking. So it should be constant, given a constant inflow of debris...
However, that is only true so long as collisions remain rare. Once there's too much debris, Kessler syndrome will cause it to 'breed' and close the orbitals for decades.
The above also doesn't account for super-popular high orbits, i.e. geosynchronous. A sufficient amount of debris in that orbit could close off that one for millennia (or until cleaned), but at least there are alternatives.