NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine says India's space test put lives at risk.
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00:00It's unacceptable, and NASA needs to be very clear about what its impact to us is.
00:17The risk to the International Space Station was increased by 44 percent.
00:22But at the end of the day, we need to be clear with everybody in the world,
00:27we're the only agency in the federal government that has human lives at stake here.
00:32And it is not acceptable for us to allow people to create orbital debris fields that put at risk our people.
00:38So the good thing is, it's low enough in Earth orbit that over time, this will all dissipate.
00:44Here's what we know about the most recent direct ascent anti-satellite test that was done by India.
00:50We know that we have identified 400 pieces of orbital debris from that one event.
00:57That's what's been identified. Now all of that cannot be tracked.
01:02What we are tracking right now, objects big enough to track, we're talking about 10 centimeters or bigger,
01:08about 60 pieces have been tracked.
01:12We are charged with commercializing low Earth orbit.
01:15We are charged with enabling more activities in space than we've ever seen before for the purpose of benefiting the human condition,
01:22whether it's pharmaceuticals or printing human organs in 3D to save lives here on Earth,
01:28or manufacturing capabilities in space that you're not able to do in a gravity well.
01:35All of those are placed at risk when these kind of events happen.
01:39And when one country does it, then other countries feel like they have to do it as well.
01:43It's unacceptable, and NASA needs to be very clear about what its impact to us is.