WASHINGTON — President Trump announced the formation of a new military Space Academy during a Friday visit to Houston — before calling up astronauts aboard the International Space Station, with one crew member informing the president his mustache is “great in microgravity.”
Trump said the new academy would be a “top line” school with tough admission standards and a “beautiful” campus to train the next generation of civilian and military aerospace experts.
“We’re going to have an academy for what the people in this room love the most,” Trump said at the NASA Johnson Space Center, “and I’m going to be choosing a location very shortly.”
“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. It’s great. They’re all great, but we’re going to have now a Space Force [academy].”
Trump said the new university “will serve both the United States Space Force as well as NASA and the civilian spaceflight industry, and it will attract, train, and graduate the very best of our nation” — as he touted plans to establish a permanent base on the moon and ultimately travel to Mars.
“I said, ‘I’ll do it, but it’s got to be top line,’” he added.
“It’s got to be the equivalent of the others, which are great. You know, they’re among the hardest schools to get into. You know, you talk about the Ivy League schools. It’s tougher to get into West Point, Annapolis, the Air Force Academy — Coast Guard too.”
Trump hinted that there was interest in opening the school in Houston.
The Naval Academy currently is the most selective military institute, with an acceptance rate of 9%, closely followed by West Point at 12%, the Air Force Academy at 14% and the Coast Guard Academy at 22%, according to US News & World Report.
Although all Ivy League schools currently have lower acceptance rates, with Cornell the highest at 8%, the military universities remain among the country’s toughest to get into for applicants.
Trump was in Houston to present the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to the four-person crew of the Artemis II mission, which in April traveled around the moon, setting a new record distance from Earth for a manned space mission.
The president joked that a political summit he hosted at his Charlottesville, Va., winery “was a disaster” because of the excitement generated by the Artemis crew’s return to Earth.
Guests were “so excited” after a TV set was wheeled into the room that “nobody did anything, so it was a total waste of time,” Trump said.
After presenting medals to the Artemis team, Trump called the International Space Station to speak with the three American astronauts on board. The current crew also includes three Russians and a member from Japan.
Trump told the trio they were “brave people” and “pioneers” and said that “I hate to admit it, I would not want to do it.”
“I want to get a mustache like that,” Trump told astronaut Jack Hathaway.
“Absolutely, sir. I appreciate it. Yeah, the mustache is a lot of fun,” Hathaway replied.
“You definitely have to have one in space. It’s great in microgravity,” he said, adding, “America’s leadership in the space program is incredible.”
ISS commander Jessica Meir told Trump about how the space station’s team spoke “crew to crew” with the Artemis astronauts during their mission, saying, “It made us all incredibly connected and incredibly proud for what we have accomplished as a country and as an international program.”
Meir praised Trump’s “very exciting news” about opening the Space Academy.
Anil Menon, a colonel in the Space Force, told Trump, “I am very proud to serve in the largest domain imaginable.”
“Last week, I got the great honor of doing a spacewalk and got to look at the space station from the robotic arm and saw the incredible ingenuity that we are capable of,” Menon told Trump.
“I’m just so proud and excited that we are going to pave the way to our next journey to the moon, moon base, and Mars. And thank you for propelling us in that direction. We are watching your plans right now come to fruition and grateful for your leadership.”
Trump told the crew he’d like to have them visit the Oval Office when they return from space.
