Anyone else built straight up?

Out of curiosity I built a tower of dirt (lots of it) straight up on a barren world. Is that all there is up there, asteroids? Or are there other things to find on normal worlds? Would be cool to find some sort of outpost or research station on one. You can go pretty high too and it looks great up there.

I'd also be interested to know if you do this at the start of a new game without air supply do you die when you exit the atmosphere?

Oh and on a related note: barren, lifeless and harmless uh? Well not exactly - there are birds up there which can kill...so - not lifeless or harmless either.