Huntsville, in the north, boasts some of the nation's highest technology, rippling out from the space industry that began with the arrival after the second world war of the Nazis' rocket-man, Wernher von Braun.

ECONOMIST: The Deep South still has a bad reputation. Unfairly so

The debris is essentially the residue of hundreds of rocket launches, exploration missions and other man-made objects left circling Earth.

WSJ: Falling Satellite Debris Might Hit U.S.

The early Soviet Space triumphs were managed and steered by Sergei Korolev, the man who built the R7 rocket that put Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin into orbit.

BBC: What if the Soviet Union had beaten the US to the Moon?