the great space garbage patch

[Sailor Robius]

hello all,

not to be a downer but.......

i was pondering, upon my usual pondering spot, about the fate of disposable modern technology as it relates to marine navigation and the seeming degradation of general seamanship. don't get me wrong, i love my GPS but in short; it occurs to me that all global satellites must have a finite operable shelf life and once they're obsolete or irreparable they are destined for a life of eternal orbit. correct me if i'm wrong but being just computers-in-space they are inevitably going to break down. what then? do they get replaced with a newer, bigger, faster, better, more model? if so then we begin contributing to the great space garbage patch. maybe thousands of years from now the aliens we've been waiting to hear from will finally make the trip in hopes of contact only to get stopped by the floating cosmic flip flop or shopping bag that jams the raw ionized air intake. what is it that makes us, and i include myself here, so lazy that we're unwilling to learn how to do it ourselves instead of having an electronic cheat sheet? thoughts please.