Trump Announces Establishment of National Space Academy

US President Donald Trump announced on Friday the creation of a national academy to train future recruits for the US Space Agency (NASA) and the Space Force, amid growing competition in the sector, particularly with China.

Trump said, “I will sign an executive order to initiate the process of establishing a new national academy. The academy will be called the United States Space Academy.”

Trump added, “This academy is very important. Its mission will be to attract the best talent our country has to offer, train them, and graduate them,” without specifying the academy’s location.

The institution will utilize NASA, along with the private space sector and the US Space Force, the sixth branch of the armed forces established by Trump during his first term, he clarified.

Trump was speaking during a ceremony awarding medals to the crew of the Artemis 2 mission at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

The crew of this mission orbited the moon last April, breaking the record for the farthest distance from Earth achieved by astronauts from the Apollo missions.

Trump said, “Today we are proud to award the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to the extraordinary Artemis 2 crew,” adding, “It is a very rare honor, bestowed upon brave and distinguished individuals, and awarded to astronauts who have distinguished themselves through exceptional service to the nation and to all humanity.”

The three Americans, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Jeremy Hansen, were the first astronauts to venture into lunar orbit since 1972.

During their globally followed journey, they broke a historic distance record, traveling more than 406,000 kilometers from Earth.

This lunar mission set a historical precedent, as it was the first to include a woman, an African-American astronaut, and a non-American, whereas the Apollo missions consisted exclusively of white astronauts.

The space sector now occupies a central place in strategic competitive arenas, particularly military and technological.

The Trump administration has explicitly declared its engagement in a “second space race” against Beijing, referencing the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Washington and Beijing are both seeking to send astronauts to the moon by 2030 and establish a base there.