President Donald Trump signs order creating US Space Academy

United States President Donald Trump has signed an executive order establishing the country’s first-ever Space Academy.

On Friday during an event honoring the four-person Artemis II crew at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Texas, Trump made the unexpected announcement. He described the training facility as “a big deal” and said it would be “top line”.

“I ⁠will sign an executive order ⁠to begin the process of creating a new national ‌academy. It’s called the US Space Academy,” Trump ‌told the astronauts and NASA employees who gathered to hear him speak.

Trump likened the space academy to other prestigious US service institutions, like the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and the US Military Academy in West Point, New York. Those schools, similar to colleges, prepare a select number of young adults in the US to become officers in the country’s military branches.

“They’re all great. But … we’re gonna have an academy for what the people in this room love the most,” Trump said. “That’s really exciting.”

The order also establishes a new presidential commission that would “advise and assist” Trump in the academy’s creation.

This commission will be led by NASA administrator Jared Isaacman and include top administration officials, among them Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, Air Force Secretary Troy Meink and Russ Vought, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.

The president said graduates of the new academy would serve the US Space Force, NASA and the civilian flight industry.