Trump Signs an Executive Order Creating a "U.S. Space Academy" on Par With West Point — and Colorado's Senator Answers That the Country Already Has One, "It's Called the U.S. Air Force Academy"
On August 28, 2026, at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, President Trump awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to the Artemis II crew and then signed an executive order establishing a U.S. Space Academy — a service academy he said would rank alongside West Point, Annapolis and the Air Force Academy, feeding graduates into the Space Force, NASA and the commercial space industry. The order does not actually create an academy. It creates a Presidential Commission on the United States Space Academy, chaired by the NASA administrator, with 120 days to recommend a governance structure, a curriculum, a location and the congressional action that would be required to stand the institution up. Trump said a site would be chosen "very shortly," and noted lawmakers were already lobbying for their own states. The reaction split along predictable lines but with an unusual geographic overlay. Rep. Brian Babin, whose Texas district includes Johnson Space Center, pitched Houston. Sen. John Hickenlooper — whose state hosts the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, the institution that already commissions Space Force officers — called the plan "duplicative, costly, and unserious." Rep. George Whitesides, the former Virgin Galactic CEO, took the proposal seriously enough to itemize what is missing from it: no congressional representation on the commission, no stated purpose distinct from existing universities, and no answer on where roughly $1 billion a year would come from. A congressionally mandated oversight body, the Air Force Academy Board of Visitors, had already recommended against a standalone institution earlier in 2026, suggesting a dedicated Space Force facility on the existing Colorado Springs campus instead.
“Another bold step by @POTUS to ensure America leads in space for generations to come. Let’s bring it to Texas!”