So the most basic way orbits work, the faster you go, the higher your orbit. Any collision has to conserve momentum, so any collision will be a net deceleration.
There WILL be things that get ejected at higher velocity, but most would cause the orbit to decay instead.
Also, while there are thousands of satellites up there, they really aren’t very close to one another.
You’d need to put a LOT of really small pieces of debris, like a shuttle exploding, to cause them to spread over LEO to a point where the random collisions really out things under threat.
Yes, but…
So the most basic way orbits work, the faster you go, the higher your orbit. Any collision has to conserve momentum, so any collision will be a net deceleration.
There WILL be things that get ejected at higher velocity, but most would cause the orbit to decay instead.
Also, while there are thousands of satellites up there, they really aren’t very close to one another.
You’d need to put a LOT of really small pieces of debris, like a shuttle exploding, to cause them to spread over LEO to a point where the random collisions really out things under threat.