The Chinese missile struck a satellite orbiting 530 miles above Earth, meaning the debris will remain in space for hundreds of years, the scientists said.
Still, Forden called the Bush administration decision to shoot down its satellite "bad policy" because it could encourage other nations to build their own antisatellite weapons.
The U.S. began to recognize the threat from space junk about a decade ago, Wright said. Since then, it has been taking measures to reduce the amount of new debris. Those efforts had largely succeeded until the Chinese demonstration.
Forden said the threat of supercriticality was a warning that it was time to treat space not as a vast junkyard, but as a natural resource that must be protected the same way we were learning to protect resources on Earth.
"We're fortunate we haven't really screwed things up yet," Wright said. "But the Chinese test brought home how quickly this could get out of hand."
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john.johnson@latimes.com
