President Donald Trump on Friday announced the creation of a new military academy, the U.S. Space Academy, to train people for the U.S. Space Force, NASA and the civilian space industry.
He signed the order while at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston to award Medals of Honor to the crew of NASA’s Artemis II mission after they flew around the moon earlier this year.
During his remarks, Trump noted that during his first term he created Space Force.
“I have another historic announcement to make. This is something that’s so exciting for me, given the rapid growth of the Space Force and the commercial space industry and the expansion of our ambitions to the moon and far beyond the moon,” he said.
Trump said that it was “clear” that there needs to be a place where the next generations of service members, engineers and operators can learn and train.
The order establishes the creation of the U.S. Space Academy.
“So you think of West Point, and you think of Annapolis, and you think of the Air Force Academy, and you think of the Coast Guard Academy. It’s great,” he said. “They’re all great, but we’re going to have now a Space Force. We’re going to have an academy for what the people in this room love the most.”
NASA will lead the federal academy and will combine “rigorous technical education with leadership, discipline, and a durable commitment to public service.”
“The mission is to prepare the next generation of astronauts, scientists, engineers, operators, entrepreneurs, civil servants, and warfighters,” Michael Kratsios, an assistant to the president, shared online.
The directive Trump signed will begin the process of creating the new academy by establishing a commission chaired by NASA administrator Jared Isaacman.
Trump said he would be picking the location of the academy “very shortly” and said that Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, was lobbying for it to be built in Texas.
It comes years after the president signed a bill into law in 2019 that created the U.S. Space Force as the newest branch of the armed forces.
The U.S. Space Academy will be the sixth official federal service academy after the U.S. Military Academy, commonly referred to as West Point, the U.S. Naval Academy, the U.S. Air Force Academy, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy.