President Donald Trump awarded Congressional Space Medals of Honor to each of the Artemis II crew members, calling them the leaders of a new generation of space exploration. He also announced his intentions to create a new space-focused academy to train that generation.
"We have to honor the heroes who are inspiring the next generation of astronauts and pioneers and the people behind me," Trump said, standing in front of NASA's astronaut corps at the Johnson Space Center on Friday.
The Artemis II crew — NASA's Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and the Canadian Space Agency's Jeremy Hansen — retraced history as they flew around the moon and back in April, the first time humans have been in lunar territory since the 1970s.
He had previously hosted the crew members at the White House following their mission and called them during the mission while the crew was tens of thousands of miles away.
"The one thing that really sticks out to us [from that call] is you said how proud you are and how proud our nation is for the job that we've just accomplished," Wiseman said during Friday's ceremony. "And for us, that is what we set out to do. We wanted to inspire this nation to learn."
During the ceremony, Trump also signed an executive order to create the "United States Space Academy." Under the order, a Presidential Commission on the U.S. Space Academy has 120 days to create a report with guidelines for the U.S. Space Academy.
The Commission will include NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman as its Chair, as well as other NASA and space officials. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Trump's Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and Michael Kratsios, assistant to the president for science and technology. In effect, it allows the Trump Administration to build the U.S. Space Academy to its liking.
"It will serve both the United States Space Force as well as NASA and the civilian spaceflight industry," Trump said. "And it will attract, train, graduate the very best that our nation and our nation really has to offer."
Among the stipulations the commission must decide where the academy will be located. Trump said he was "going to be choosing a location very shortly. I know where some people want it that are in this room."
The commission will also establish a governing framework; a curriculum; service obligations for graduates, and the conditions under which such obligations should be fulfilled; prerequisites for applicants; and when such an academy will begin operating.
"President Trump's vision for a new academy is a transformational step to educate the engineers, scientists, technicians, operators and even the astronauts who will be necessary for the inspiring future we are pursuing in space," NASA Administrator Isaacman said in a press release. "In the years ahead, we will return NASA astronauts to the lunar surface, build the moon base, get underway on nuclear power, ignite the orbital economy and launch more missions of science and discovery. I have no doubt that so much of the future talent that will graduate and contribute to these exciting endeavors will be educated at the United States Space Academy."
Trump offered few specific details about the academy, though he compared it to the U.S. Military Academy in West Point and the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. He did say, though, that the architecture of the academy, itself, will be "beautiful."
"It’s going to be at the top, it’s going to be as good as it can get," he said. "You know, doing a bad building doesn’t cost a lot less than doing a great building, I've always said. Doing great architecture, doing something really great that’s also practical, doesn’t cost much more than doing some of the bad stuff that you see all over the place. We’re going to make this so good and so exciting."
Copyright 2026 Houston Public Media News 88.7