The White House announced today that President Donald Trump would be signing an executive order to start a space force academy like the Naval Academy and Air Force Academy, but his info came with certain caveats.
Speaking at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Trump said “the rapid growth of the Space Force and the commercial space industry and the expansion of our ambitions to the moon and far beyond the moon” inspired the new academy.
“It’s clear that we need to educate and train an entire generation of skilled service members, engineers, civil operators and everything else to do what we have to do,” he continued.
Then he made the big announcement.
"And we'll continue, and I think by leaps and bounds. And that's why in a few moments I will sign an executive order to begin the process of creating a new national academy. It's called the US Space Academy. 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 Academy is great. They're all great. But uh, we're going to have the Space Force now. We're going to have an academy for what the people in this room love the most. That's exciting. That's really exciting. And I'm going to be choosing a location very shortly," said Trump.
Except that isn't exactly true.
While Trump might choose his own preferred location, his executive order doesn't establish the academy. In fact, the EO doesn't even make specific demands of Congress.
Reuters reporter Patricia Zengerle explained on X, "The order creates a commission to create a proposal for an academy, and, in theory, at least, an academy would have to be authorized/funded by Congress."
The text of the order reads, "Sec. 2. Establishment and Composition of the Presidential Commission on the United States Space Academy. (a) There is hereby established the Presidential Commission on the United States Space Academy (Commission). The Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) shall serve as Chair of the Commission. The Assistant to the President for Science and Technology (APST) and the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy (APEP) shall serve as Vice Chairs of the Commission. The Deputy Administrator of NASA shall serve as Executive Director."
The order continues, stating that the commission would then submit its proposal within 120 days of the order. However, Trump doesn't appear to have made appointments to the commission yet.
The order also mandates that all applicants must have specific "prerequisites ... including citizenship status, security clearances, and government employment or military status."
It wasn't until the end of Subsection 3 that the order acknowledged that Congress still needs to fund it with the language: "legislative actions necessary to implement the Commission’s recommendations."