Bill Nelson: “I wish I could say that this technology was in place and working, so that we wouldn't have to keep having these deadly…”

This is a watershed moment for planetary defense and all of humanity.

One of the reasons you and I were able to accomplish so much on this committee is both of us worked very hard to keep politics out of NASA and to focus on the core mission of exploration.

It is a real problem, and we are going to have some catastrophic consequences if we cannot get nations that are launching things into space to provide enough fuel to have a controlled reentry.

We cannot identify every object. However, NEO Surveyor will be able to identify 90 percent of all the potential asteroids that are greater than 140 meters wide within the 10 years of the launch.