The term "Kessler Syndrome" is an orbital debris term that has become popular outside the professional orbital debris community without ever having a strict definition. The intended definition grew out of a 1978 JGR paper predicting that fragments from random collisions between catalogued objects in low Earth orbit would become an important source of small debris beginning in about the year 2000, and that afterwards, "...the debris flux will increase exponentially with time, even though a zero net input may be maintained". The purpose of this paper is to clarify the intended definition of the term, to put the implications into perspective after 30 years of research by the international scientific community, and to discuss what this research may mean to future space operations. The conclusion is reached that while popular use of the term may have exaggerated and distorted the conclusions of the 1978 paper, the result of all research to date confirms that we are now entering a time when the orbital debris environment will increasingly be controlled by random collisions. Without adequate collision avoidance capabilities, control of the future environment requires that we fully implement current mitigation guidelines by not leaving future payloads and rocket bodies in orbit after their useful life. In addition, we will likely be required to return some objects already in orbit.