Trump Announces U.S. Space Academy as America Enters a New Space Race
Meanwhile, SpaceX plans to invest up to $100 billion in massive Louisiana spaceport.
President Dold Trump has ordered the creation of a US Space Academy, framing it as a future training ground for personnel serving the military, NASA, and the rapidly expanding private spaceflight sector.
The proposal builds on Trump’s 2019 creation of the US Space Force, the nation’s newest military branch. It reflects the administration’s view that a robust presence in space is needed for national security, scientific research, and commercial operations.
Mr. Trump announced the new academy at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston during an event awarding the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to the four-person crew of Artemis II, which flew around the moon earlier this year, a flight that helps set the stage for a lunar landing in 2028.
“It’s called the U.S. Space Academy,” Mr. Trump said. “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 academies. Great, they’re all great. But we’re going to have now the Space Force. We’re going to have an academy for what the people in this room love the most.”
The president said the academy will “attract, train and graduate the very best of our nation.” He said he agreed to build the academy, but “it’s got to be top line. It’s got to be the equivalent of the others, which are great.”
The Trump administration hasn’t yet chosen a location for the academy, but Mr. Trump said Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is lobbying for Texas.
BREAKING: President Donald J. Trump just signed an Executive Order establishing a new federal academy, THE UNITED STATES SPACE ACADEMY. 🚀🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/BOxPfoVLeX
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) August 28, 2026
Texas may be a strong contender due to its proximity to Louisiana. SpaceX is investing billions to develop a massive spaceport along the Louisiana coastline.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said Tuesday that SpaceX will commit $100 billion to develop Starship factories and launch pads in the state’s coastal areas. In doing so, the company seeks to replicate the Starbase facility it has built over the last decade in southern Texas on a larger scale.
The announcement capped months of speculation about SpaceX’s interest in a sprawling parcel of land along the Gulf coast of Louisiana, which offers room to build multiple launch towers and offers access to the methane propellant that fuels the Starship rocket.
Gwynne Shotwell, the president and chief operating officer of SpaceX, said the “Starbase Louisiana” facility would become a self-sustaining spaceport with propellant production, power generation, deep-water shipping capabilities, vehicle processing facilities, and an airport on site.
“This will be a project like no other,” she said during a project announcement in Abbeville, a Louisiana town of about 12,000 people that is the closest populated area to the coastal wetlands.
SpaceX is expanding its launch infrastructure with a new spaceport along Louisiana’s Gulf Coast.
The new facility in Vermilion Parish marks another step in SpaceX’s growing U.S. launch footprint beyond its existing sites in Texas and Florida.
To support the local community,… pic.twitter.com/LISmIgKnSX
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) August 28, 2026
I predict that once Space Academy opens, there will be a massive number of applications for its first class. Presently, the US Air Force Academy is the school for potential Space Force officers.
As of 2024, the Space Force consisted of more than 14,000 military and civilian personnel.
The Defense Department declined to create a separate school for training young Space Force officers when the service was established in 2019. Instead, those individuals received preparations for their military careers alongside Air Force cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado, similar to Marines who are educated alongside sailors at the U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland.
In 2025, 93 cadets from the Air Force Academy were commissioned into the Space Force — about 10 percent of the graduating class.
The move aligns with Trump’s newly released space policy, in which he tasked his administration with building the capacity to handle more than 1,000 launches and reentries each year by 2030.
This new academy fits beautifully into Trump’s vision for the space era, following the Space Force with a dedicated pipeline to staff it, as well as NASA and the booming commercial launch industry.
Whether it lands in Texas, Louisiana, or elsewhere, expect fierce lobbying from states eager to become the next hub in America’s space economy.
If Trump keeps his promise to make it “top of the line,” the US Space Academy could quickly become as coveted and as competitive to enter as West Point or Annapolis.
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Great, Houston. Reward the biggest dark blue inkstain in Texas.
It beats the Peoples Democratic Republic of Austin. Houston has oil and gas industries, while the PDRA has state bureaucracies, Commies, aging 60s hippies, and weed.
So we get to have genuine Space Cadets in the US Armed Services now?
Do we really need another academy. We dont have a separate academy for marines, Annapolis graduates can elect to be commissioned as marine second lieutenants. I would think an air force academy education could similarly prepare a cadet for the space force as is the case now,
Agreed. If necessary, add a facility for Space Force-specific instruction. Call it Hayworth Hall…
The Marines aren’t their own branch (as much as they like to pretend they are). The Marines are under the Navy Department. That’s why Marines can be Navy Seals and Marines go to the Naval Academy.
That’s because Marines are essentially the Navy’s infantry. That is not to denigrate the Marines in any way shape or form. They are among the most effective fighting forces in the world. I’d contend they are THE most effective fighting force that isn’t considered “special operations”.
The Space Force is a new thing. It doesn’t have hundreds of years of tradition to fall back on. Much like when the Air Force was split off from the Army (previously it was the Army Air Corps) into its own branch, it started its own academy and its own traditions independent of the Army.
The Space Force is its own newly established branch essentially split off from the Air Force and therefore needs to have its own academy and begin building its own traditions.
It’s going to give a whole new definition to Celestial Navigation class.
Do they teach rocket science at Colorado Springs?
Air Force still controls the land missiles of the US triad so I would assume yes,
Will it be called Starfeet Academy (in honor of Holly Hunter), or Starfleet Learing Center?
I think of this more like the maritime academies in Massachusetts and California or the Merchant Marine Academy. The midshipmen can take a commission in the military (usually Navy, though I played rugby with a Marine who graduated from MA Maritime). I think they generally serve as Reservists if they choose to work in commercial shipping. I expect the eventual policy to be to give the USSA cadets an option: serve in the Space Force or at NASA to fulfill your commitment or serve as a Reservist in the Space Force and go directly into industry. The curriculum will amaze me, I expect.
An alternative location would be Alabama. Home to the US Space Command HQ and the Marshall Space Flight Center. Could even use the existing Marion Military Institute grounds as the Academy.
Per AI:
*there are about 10,000 active members of Space Force.
I am curious how large wi
So far, the only thing that they’ve really screwed up regarding the Space Force is that the official anthem for it, Semper Sutra, does not feature a Theramin.
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