Four American heroes flew to the far side of the moon four months ago – and Jen Psaki used to laugh at the branch of the military that made it possible.
Now Trump just answered that mockery with the biggest move in American space history since 1954.
Donald Trump did something no President has done since Dwight Eisenhower – and Maxine Waters is going to hate every word of it.
The First New Military Academy in 72 Years
The last time America built something like this, Dwight Eisenhower was president and the Korean War had just ended.
That was 1954.
Trump just signed the order at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston – the same room where the Artemis II crew received their Congressional Space Medal of Honor after flying 252,756 miles into space, farther than any human had traveled since Apollo 13.
Think about that.
Those four astronauts – Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Jeremy Hansen – flew around the far side of the moon in April and came home to a country with no dedicated pipeline to train the people who do that for a living.
https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/2093383065548492982?s=20
Trump fixed it Friday.
The United States Space Academy will train the next generation of Space Force guardians, NASA engineers, and civilian space operators under a full-scholarship, taxpayer-funded program with mandatory service commitments.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman – the man who called Artemis II "the greatest adventure in human history" – will chair the Presidential Commission tasked with designing the academy from scratch.
They have 120 days.
China Has 1,060 Satellites and We're Still Sharing a Campus
Here's what the media won't say out loud.
Right now, Space Force officers train alongside Air Force cadets at the Air Force Academy in Colorado.
That's not a long-term strategy – that's a placeholder that's been sitting there since 2019 because the Pentagon couldn't agree on anything better.
Meanwhile, China's operational satellite fleet crossed 1,060 satellites by mid-2025 – hundreds of them military.
Space Force Gen. Chance Saltzman warned Congress flat-out that China's growing arsenal threatens America's ability to use satellites for targeting, communications, and surveillance in any Pacific conflict.
America's GPS. America's banking system.
America's power grid. All of it runs on satellites.
https://twitter.com/TrumpWarRoom/status/2093384004963574232?s=20
All of it is at risk.
That's not a think-tank hypothesis.
That's the chief of Space Operations telling Congress to wake up.
Trump heard it.
The Space Academy is the answer.
The commission will design a curriculum combining technical education with leadership development – astronauts, scientists, engineers, operators, entrepreneurs, warfighters.
Not one or the other.
All of them, trained together, committed to service.
In the class of 2026 alone, only 94 Air Force Academy cadets were assigned to the Space Force.
As of 2020, the total pipeline of Space Force graduates from the Air Force Academy stands at 666.
That's it.
That's the entire bench for a branch of the military responsible for defending every satellite America depends on.
China isn't capped at 666.
China isn't sharing a campus.
They Called It a Joke. Then Space Force Saved Lives.
In 2019, Stephen Colbert did a Baby Yoda bit about the Space Force on national television.
Jen Psaki stood at the White House podium in 2021 and let the contempt drip from her voice when a reporter asked about it.
Maxine Waters and Rashida Tlaib led a push in Congress to abolish the entire branch.
That was five years ago.
In March 2026, Space Force tracked and neutralized incoming missiles during Operation Epic Fury – protecting American troops and allied forces in real time.
Jesse Watters reported on Fox that Space Force was operating from American soil, out of harm's way, doing the job the left said it couldn't do.
The people who laughed have gone very quiet.
Now Trump is giving the Space Force their own academy – on par with West Point and Annapolis.
Artemis IV is planned to land astronauts near the moon's South Pole in 2028, a region no human has ever set foot on.
The Space Academy will be producing graduates before that mission leaves the launchpad.
Eisenhower built the Air Force Academy because jets changed warfare forever.
Trump is building the Space Academy because satellites, hypersonics, and lunar resources are the new jets – and China already knows it.
The only question left is where Trump puts it.
He said he'll decide "very shortly."
Sources:
- Ashley Ahn, "Trump signs order to create US Space Academy," Politico, August 28, 2026.
- Colorado Springs Gazette, "Trump signs executive order creating commission for military space academy," August 28, 2026.
- NASA, "Liftoff! NASA Launches Astronauts on Historic Artemis Moon Mission," April 2, 2026.
- SpaceNews, "China's space ambitions hit a new gear," November 18, 2025.
- Air and Space Forces Magazine, "Report: Space Force Needs More Funding, Training to Counter China," November 24, 2025.
- Townhall, "The Democrats Laughed at Space Force. They're Not Laughing Anymore," March 6, 2026.
- Legal Insurrection, "Space Force Proves Its Worth as Trump's Vision Pays Off During Epic Fury," March 11, 2026.
