Why is Earth orbit so... empty?

[Jono]

If you want a real world example the reason we don't see much in the way of non-Starfleet traffic around Starfleet ships and stations is because of restrictions against such things. Look at when navy ships go into port at another country, they organise to restrict other vessels from getting too close to them while they are vulnerable. Starfleet vessels are advanced ships with powerful weapons systems, you don't want every man and his dog with an orbital shuttle buzzing around.

 

[Geoff]

The thread question is a good one. I too have wondered why low Earth orbit is so empty in Trek... I would expect to see drydocks, habitation rings, private shuttles buzzing to and from the surface, 'cruise' ships and transports taking holidaymakers to/from Earth etc. Or, from a military point of view, no starships orbiting the planet (either for R&R, in active duty or whatever)

I think we're all suffering from a woeful lack of perspective regarding the size of the planet.

Okay, so let's make the crazy assumption that everything orbiting the Earth in the 23rd-24th century is in a low Earth orbit (LOE) of about 1000 km, and in the same orbital plane. Such an orbit would have a circumference of about 46,350 km.

Let's assume that there are a dozen space docks, a dozen or so starships, a couple dozen space stations... heck, let's say a hundred decently massive-sized objects that we might have the possibility of seeing outside the window of our orbiting spacecraft.

If those hundred objects are spaced apart more-or-less randomly, that means there's an average distance of 463 km between each of them. Tell me... Can you see Chicago's Sears Tower from Detroit? 'Cause that's about the same distance.

And again, we're assuming that everything is in the same orbital plane, which is kind of a ridiculous assumption. The average distance between massive objects in orbit would more likely be thousands (or tens of thousands) of kilometers. Space is still big and mostly empty, even in a crowded Earth orbit.