Isaacman to lead commission recommending academy details within 120 days
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday to create the U.S. Space Academy, a new institution intended to train and educate personnel for the nation’s aerospace workforce and military space branches. The signing took place at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Trump also awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to the crew of NASA’s Artemis II mission during the same event.
Speaking at the Johnson Space Center, Trump compared the new academy to West Point, Annapolis, the Air Force Academy, and the Coast Guard Academy. “That’s a big deal. 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 — great — they’re all great, but we’re going to have now a space force,” Trump said. “We’re going to have an academy for what the people in this room love the most.”
The executive order directs that the academy’s mandate is to “strengthen the Nation’s space workforce by expanding opportunities to educate and develop the next generation of leaders across the space domain.”
The White House described the academy as a “NASA-led federal academy dedicated to combining rigorous technical education with leadership development, discipline and a durable commitment to public service. The Space Academy will develop a professional corps of civically grounded leaders prepared to advance American interests within the space domain.”
Trump also signed a directive to begin the process of creating the new academy by establishing a commission chaired by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. The commission will report to the president within 120 days on key details to establish the school, according to United Press International.
The commission will also include input from high-ranking government leaders or their representatives, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the secretary of the Air Force, The Wall Street Journal reported. Isaacman has focused on the NASA workforce since being sworn into his position last December, the Journal reported. He has sought to convert employees working for contractors into NASA jobs, arguing the agency needs to rebuild its own technical capabilities. The agency created an initiative called NASA Force to bring people on for what are typically one- or two-year appointments. Last year, NASA let some employees go and saw a significant number of people retire or take a voluntary buyout to leave the agency, according to the Journal.
“It’s clear we will need to educate and train an entire generation of skilled servicemembers and engineers and civil operators and everything else,” Trump said of the space academy, comparing it to West Point, the Journal reported. He did not say where the institution would be located.
The academy’s location has not been named, but Trump said in his remarks that Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has been pushing for the school to be located in Texas.
Trump created the U.S. Space Force in 2019 during his first term in office.
The signing event was dedicated to the astronauts who flew around the moon and back earlier this year on NASA’s Artemis II mission. Each crew member was awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.
The Space Academy is the latest policy push at the White House tied to U.S. activities in orbit. Earlier this month, Trump signed a policy memo requiring U.S. spaceports to be ready by 2030 to support more than 1,000 rocket launches and spacecraft re-entries annually. In July, federal aviation regulators unveiled a proposal to roll back environmental reviews tied to many space-related activities.