Actually, there is already a
flotilla of
deadly space junk above our heads. There are many dead
satellites spiraling downwards towards their
doom. Most of the junk will burn up, so it won't bother us much here on the surface of the planet.
The big problem is all the crap that continues to float around in orbit and the danger it presents to folks and the functional orbiting devices. NASA tracks most of the significant space junk, but there are thousands of smaller pieces of junk that litter the skies. On a recent Space Shuttle - Space Station mission, an astronaut lost a tool, which floated away. When the Apollo missions were going on, they spread bits of metal and the occasional bolt into an orbiting pattern. These bits of space junk are traveling at a high velocity. They are too small to track, and any two colliding will send them off in unpredictable directions. A nut made in 1969 can still do major damage to a solar panel made in 2000.
Unfortunately, crap will continue to accumulate until something major is damaged or people are killed. Hopefully no country will become silly enough to put nuclear missile platforms in orbit, lest one nut become the downfall of us all.