Trump Is Building a Space Academy for Civilians. Should You Send Your Kids?

On August 28th, President Trump signed an executive order at the NASA Johnson Space Center located in the city of Houston, Texas. And by doing so, he established the U.S. Space Academy to recruit, train, as well as to retain America's best and brightest. Take a look. In a few moments, I will sign an executive order to begin the process of creating a new national academy. It's called the U.S. Space Academy. That's a big deal, but it'll serve both the United States Space Force as well as NASA and the civilian spaceflight industry. It'll attract, train, and graduate the very best of our nation. Now, unlike the Army, Navy, and Air Force military academies, the Space Academy is not being planned exclusively to train future Space Force guardians, i.e., it's not being made to exclusively train U.S. military personnel. It will do that, but it will also prepare students for future careers over at NASA. It'll basically be a dual-use academy for both military as well as for civilian space-related jobs. It'll work to develop the engineers, the scientists, as well as the technical specialists needed for the growing U.S. civilian space industry. In essence, you can think of it as a future one-stop shop to help build out the U.S.-based workforce that will be required to realize America's space-based ambitions in the very near future. Here is directly from the signed executive order. Quote, The United States Space Academy, a proposed NASA-led federal academy dedicated to combining rigorous technical education with leadership development, discipline, and a durable commitment to public service. The Space Academy will develop a professional corps of civically grounded leaders prepared to advance American interests within the space domain. Now, if you notice there, the executive order referred to it as a NASA-led academy rather than a Pentagon-led academy. That's in part because the executive order calls for the establishment of a commission chaired by the head of NASA and composed of eight other high-ranking members from several different government entities, including the Secretary of War, the President's Chief of Staff, the Director for the Office of Management and Budget, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, the Secretary of the Air Force, as well as basically anyone else who is interested in joining. This commission is required to come up with a report by this upcoming Christmas on how, as well as where, the Space Academy will be set up. And just as an aside, one of the reasons that this academy is needed in the first place, aside from just the general very future-looking space frontier perspective, is the fact that the U.S. Space Force right now is struggling to meet their numbers. A 2025 report from the GAO, the Government Accountability Office, it found that out of the roughly 18,000 jobs that the Space Force says they need to do its missions, only 13,500 are filled, leaving a gap of roughly 25%. And one of the reasons for this gap is that all of these different new upstart space-related companies are luring away potential Space Force candidates with much more higher-paying jobs in the private sector. And so you combine these different factors. You combine the current shortfall that they now have with the fact that Space Force leaders have been saying that their headcount actually needs to double in the very near future, with the fact that you have private space companies sucking away top talent, and a Space Force Academy makes a lot of sense. And just as another aside, if you happen to be a parent to a young kid right now, it's perhaps worth mentioning that the demand for young STEM students is skyrocketing. That's a pun by the way. The demand is skyrocketing as different space companies are ramping up their operations and as astronauts are once again in the national spotlight. As just one example of many, on the very same day that this executive order was signed, President Trump also presented all the members of the Artemis II mission, all the mission crew, with the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. Here's a clip from NASA on what that actually looked like. When Americans are determined nothing can hold us back, Proudly awarding the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to the remarkable crew of Artemis II. Artemis II blasted off from Kennedy last April and flew more than 250,000 miles from Earth. Please join me in congratulating Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist Christina Cook, and Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen. Great people. Thank you. that these astronauts did not do it alone. I want to salute all of the engineers and scientists, everyone at NASA who helped make this mission a great success. And for your reference, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor was authorized by Congress in 1969 to recognize brave astronauts. There are now 34 recipients of this award, but that number might go up in the very near future given the fact that NASA is actively working once again to get us back on the moon by 2028. However, it is worth mentioning that the NASA Artemis program is just one faction of a much larger plan by the U.S. to totally dominate the space domain. All right, just to pause here for a super quick moment, if you've watched our program, Facts Matter, then you know that we focus on one thing, which is the facts. Not speculation, not narratives, just what the data shows. And right now, the data globally is pointing in a direction people should really be paying attention to, which is the fact that global conflicts are fueling market uncertainty. 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And right now, when you call and mention my name, Roman, you can get up to $20,000 in free silver with your first qualifying purchase. So give them a call, 866-242-2352, or just text Roman to 65532. That's again, 866-242-2352, or text Roman to 65532. I'll also throw all their details. You'll be able to find them down in the description box below. In 2025, the U.S. Space Force released this document here, outlining the basic working principles that our space program must have. And they don't really mince words and they don't really hide the ball when it comes to our space ambitions, given the fact that this is what they wrote, quote, it is the formative purpose of the space force to achieve space superiority, to ensure freedom of movement in space for our forces, while denying the same to our adversaries. Basically, the goal is total space domination. And one of the keys to achieving this space dominance is the ability to be able to maneuver through space as well as to stop any enemy spacecraft that poses a threat to U.S. interests. Quote, For example, a rendezvous and proximity operation may include purposeful positioning of a spacecraft near or in contact with another spacecraft. This can be conducted for the purposes of defense, offense, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, collection, sustainment, training, research and development, or to fulfill other missions. In short, our goal is to be able to do whatever we want out in space. And in the report, there's a little pop-out blue box that references the U.S. Air Force's Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program, otherwise known as the GSS-AP. And earlier this year, that program culminated in the launching of two space surveillance satellites whose mission is to monitor the satellite activity in geosynchronous orbit. Essentially, people have been calling America the world's police for a while now, and now we are setting up a neighborhood watch up in space. However, the neighborhood watch core principle of observe and report is not likely going to keep either China or Russia at bay. For that, you need something that can actually reach out and touch them. And to that end, in 2024, NASA partnered up with DARPA to expand their robotic servicing of geosynchronous satellites program. and ostensibly it's an assistance program. These space robots, they have these robotic claws to be able to assist satellites with orbit adjustments, they can inspect any spacecraft that's experiencing some sort of an anomaly, they can correct some mechanical problems, and they can even install necessary payloads if need be. But if you just stop and use your imagination for a little bit, These service robots could also, theoretically, be used in an offensive capability to disable enemy spacecraft without the need to blow them up into tens of thousands of pieces of space debris. In the meantime, though, what's definitely clear from these documents and the setting up of the Space Academy and all these contracts that are out is that the U.S. is definitely gearing up for some major potential future confrontations in the space domain. And I mean, the whole topic just makes me wonder if the US, we as a nation, can exert our dominance in space without blowing up enemy spacecraft in a way that leaves behind a massive field of space debris. Because if that happens, it might trigger something known as the Kessler effect, which is a situation where the density of objects in orbit gets so high, there's just so much stuff flying around up there, or I guess floating around up there, that you have a couple of collisions that spark a chain reaction of collisions, just things bumping into each other every which way, to the point where the debris that remains makes space travel impossible for generations. The place is going to be covered with space debris every which way, which might mean, if you think about it, that we are right now in 2026, potentially living in the golden age where satellites give us access to GPS, instant communication, the internet, and everything else. but in the future that might not be possible. We assume that things are just going to develop in this way but in the future if there's some kind of a war fighting scenario in space there's just going to be so much debris up there that satellites just can't fly and maybe we will look back and say wow actually all the conveniences we had in the years 2026 and before were the best time ever. So that's if there's a silver lining to it all here it is. In the meantime though if you want to check out. Anything related to the Space Academy or these contracts that were out or the Congressional Space Medal of Honors, I will throw all those links down into the description box below, which is that same description box right below those like and subscribe buttons, both of which I hope you smash. And then lastly, as I sort of alluded to, if you have little kids and you're wondering with the rise of AI, geez, what are they going to, what kind of job prospects are they going to have in the future well look space is the new frontier so if you are looking if you're forward looking and you're thinking hey what's actually going to be more opened up as a domain uh 20 years from now when your little kid is looking for a career maybe space is the way to go just just a thought of course um yeah otherwise leave your thoughts in the comments about what you think regarding the new domain of space and until next time i'm your host Roman from the Epoch Times stay informed and most importantly stay free