'It's going to be beautiful': President Trump signs order to create US Space Academy

The United States will soon have a new service academy — or something like it, anyway.President Donald Trump today (Aug. 28) signed an executive order creating the U.S. Space Academy, an institution of higher learning that will train students for a career studying, exploring, exploiting or helping to protect the final frontier. "It'll serve both the United States Space Force as well as NASA and the civilian spaceflight industry, and it'll attract, train and graduate the very very best of our nation," Trump said today during a ceremony at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, at which he awarded the Artemis II moon astronauts the nation's highest space honor.President Donald Trump awarded the four astronauts of NASA's Artemis II moon mission the Congressional Space Medal of Honor at Johnson Space Center on Aug. 28, 2026. They, in turn, gave him a flight jacket. (Image credit: Kent NISHIMURA / AFP via Getty Images)Trump compared the new school to the academies for the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard. But it appears that the U.S. Space Academy won't be so militarily focused."President Trump's vision for a new academy is a transformational step to educate the engineers, scientists, technicians, operators and even the astronauts who will be necessary for the inspiring future we are pursuing in space," NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in an agency statement today."In the years ahead, we will return NASA astronauts to the lunar surface, build the Moon Base, get underway on nuclear power, ignite the orbital economy and launch more missions of science and discovery," he added. "I have no doubt that so much of the future talent that will graduate and contribute to these exciting endeavors will be educated at the United States Space Academy."Isaacman is involved in the new project. He chairs the Presidential Commission on the United States Space Academy, which will help flesh out the new school. Within the next 120 days, the commission will submit a report "with recommendations on governance framework, service obligations for graduates, physical location of the academy, legislative requirements and more," NASA officials wrote in today's statement.Artemis II astronaut Jeremy Hansen, left, watches as President Donald Trump awards Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman with the Congressional Space Medal of Honor ceremony at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston Friday, Aug. 28, 2026.  (Image credit: Melissa Phillip/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)Trump may weigh in during the design phase. He certainly has expectations for the academy, saying that "it's got to be top line.""Even architecturally, it's got to be — it's going to be beautiful," the president added. "It's going to be the top. It's going to be as good as it can get. You know, doing a bad building doesn't cost a lot less than doing a great building. I've always said it: Doing great architecture, doing something really great that's also practical — it doesn't cost much more than doing some of the bad stuff that you see all over the place. But we're going to make this so good and so exciting."