President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to begin creating a US Space Academy, a new institution modeled on West Point and other top US military service academies.
"It's called the US Space Academy. That's a big deal," Trump said during a visit on Friday to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, where he honoured the Artemis II crew with the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.
Trump said the academy would help train the service members, engineers and civilian operators needed as the US Space Force and commercial space industry grow and Washington expands its ambitions on the moon and beyond.
"It'll serve both the United States Space Force as well as NASA and the civilian spaceflight industry, and it'll attract, train, and graduate the very best of our nation."
He did not say where the new academy would be built.
Trump has credited the US Space Force, the sixth branch of the US armed forces, with an important role in the recent American military operations in Venezuela and Iran.
"A nation cannot be first on Earth if we're going to be second in space. Just not going to happen. Somehow, it just doesn't work that way," Trump added.
Nuclear-powered interplanetary spacecraft
Trump also said NASA has begun work on what he called the first nuclear-powered interplanetary spacecraft, which he said is expected to launch on a mission to Mars in 2028.
He said the vessel could be the first in a larger American fleet aimed at making space travel more routine.
Outer space has become an increasingly strategic domain for global powers in the military and technology fields.
The United States is competing with China in the race to land astronauts on the Moon before 2030, more than 50 years after humans first walked the lunar surface.
Trump last week pledged a "golden age" of space in a push to launch more rockets, including to Mars and the Moon.
