Remember that episode of the West Wing where Donna is freaking out about a satellite about the size of a garbage truck was falling from the sky at thousands of miles per hour and no one knew where it was going to land? At some point Josh reveals that this happens all the time and no one has ever been killed by it. That wasn’t just Aaron Sorkin making up fun facts, he’s spot on. Of the 7455 satellites that have been put into orbit, 6,506 have fallen back to earth.

This week the students released a video of the research they did at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design in the Urban Theory Lab seminar taught by Professor of Urban Theory Neil Brenner about the intensity of orbital satellite launches from 1957-2013 – watch out at around 2:10, that’s when things get interesting: