eli5 why is a higher amount of space junk a problem for us? Why can’t we shoot it away with missiles?
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No one here has mentioned Kessler Syndrome.
In Space, there’s nothing to pull things together, so if something is hit by something else in space then likelihood is both or one object will break apart into many smaller fragments.
You may think that small debris would be less of a problem, unfortunately it’s actually a bigger problem because it’s harder to detect, at orbital speeds, these can be very destructive if they hit something. (ISS travels at about 7 kilometres per SECOND compared to us) Here’s what a speck of paint did to the cupola module on the ISS:
https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2016/05/Impact_chip
Kessler predicted that if things keep hitting each other in orbit eventually you’re left with a cloud of tiny debris orbiting the Earth at kilometres per second speeds, this has the unfortunate downside of shredding any spacecraft that tries to leave the planet to the point that we’re stuck here.
Shooting missiles at it will only accelerate the problem whilst putting more debris into orbit. That said, most satellites now have limited lifespans for this exact reason and they will de-orbit themselves due to atmospheric drag.
Another solution is to actively de-orbit the junk that’s already in space, though I’ve yet to see this happen in practice.
The main issue is we really need to keep on top of this through international cooperation to keep space open for all. De-orbiting spent boosters and obsolete satellites now is much easier then after they’ve collided, smashed into thousands of pieces, and drifted into many many different orbital paths. It’s one of the reasons Russia’s anti-satellite was condemned worldwide due to the unnecessary creation of lots of debris.
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