In theory, Donald Trump’s event Friday in Texas should’ve been entirely straightforward. The president was at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, where he awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to the Artemis II crew, though the gathering was not without awkward moments.
For example, the Republican took the opportunity to talk about the stock market and foreign investments, for reasons that weren’t altogether clear. He spent some time talking about his 2016 candidacy and his electoral performance in Texas. At one point, the president even said he was “genetically” inclined to like space “stuff” because his uncle was a science professor at MIT.
The audience did not seem overly impressed.
Eventually, however, Trump managed to make some news, announcing plans to create the U.S. Space Academy in support of the U.S. Space Force. From his remarks:
It’s clear that we need to educate and train an entire generation of skilled service members, engineers, civil operators … and that’s why in a few moments we’re going to get an executive order to begin the process of creating a new national academy. It’s called the U.S. Space Academy.
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 Academies. Great, they’re all great, but we’re going to have now the Space Force.
If these plans move forward, this would be the first new federal military academy in the United States since 1954.
It’s not altogether clear exactly what Space Academy graduates would do, and there’s reason for some skepticism.
For one thing, Trump’s track record related to service academies is already problematic, especially in light of what the White House has done to West Point.
For another, the president has long struggled to explain why he created Space Force in the first place, other than his apparent belief that it sounded cool.
The Republican said in March 2018, in reference to a conversation he claims to have had with White House staff, “You know, I was saying it the other day, because we are doing a tremendous amount of work in space. I said, ‘Maybe we need a new force. We’ll call it Space Force.” And I was not really serious. Then I said, ‘What a great idea. Maybe we’ll have to do that.’”
More than 80 years later, Trump is seriously invested in his not-really-serious idea.
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