SPACE COAST, Fla. – The Economic Development Commission of Florida’s Space Coast is making a formal push to land the newly created United States Space Academy in Brevard County, sending a letter to NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman arguing that no other region in the country can match the Space Coast’s concentration of launch infrastructure, military space assets and aerospace workforce.
The EDC announced the effort Tuesday, Sept. 1, four days after President Trump signed an executive order establishing the United States Space Academy and the Presidential Commission that will decide where it goes.
What the President Signed
President Trump signed the order on Friday, Aug. 28, at NASA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, during a ceremony awarding the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to the Artemis II crew.
The order does not build the academy outright. It creates the Presidential Commission on the United States Space Academy and gives that panel 120 days to deliver recommendations to the President on where the school should be located, how it should be governed, what it should teach, and what service obligations graduates should carry, including service in the armed forces and in civilian federal roles.
Unlike West Point, Annapolis or the Air Force Academy, the Space Academy as described in the order would not be a military service academy. The order calls it a NASA-led federal academy that pairs technical education with leadership development, discipline and a commitment to public service, aimed at producing engineers, scientists, technicians, operators, astronauts and civil servants for the space domain.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman will chair the commission. NASA Deputy Administrator Matt Anderson will serve as executive director. White House science and technology adviser Michael Kratsios and National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett will serve as vice chairs. War Secretary Pete Hegseth and Air Force Secretary Troy Meink, or their designees, are also named to the panel, along with other federal representatives.
In a statement released by NASA, Isaacman called the academy a transformational step toward educating the workforce the agency will need for its long-term exploration goals.
The President told the audience in Houston that he would choose a location “very shortly,” and joked about lobbying he was already receiving from Sen. Ted Cruz on behalf of Texas. No site has been announced.
The Space Coast Makes Its Case
EDC President and CEO Lynda L. Weatherman laid out the region’s argument in her letter to Isaacman, pointing to what the organization describes as an unmatched combination of space infrastructure, military and civil space capability, commercial launch activity, research institutions and skilled workforce concentrated in one place.
“There is no better place to launch this mission than Florida’s Space Coast,” Weatherman said in the announcement. She added that few regions have played a larger role in the country’s history of exploration and that the case rests on capabilities that already exist here.
EDC Chair-Elect Todd Pokrywa said the organization is prepared to work with regional partners to support establishing the academy in Brevard, citing the area’s combination of assets as the reason it is positioned to help train the next generation.
The EDC also tied the academy’s stated emphasis on discipline and public service to the region’s history, arguing those values are already embedded in the culture of a community built around the space program.
The Competition
Brevard will not have the field to itself. Analysts and national outlets have identified Houston, home to Johnson Space Center and the site of the President’s announcement, as an obvious contender, along with Colorado Springs, where U.S. Space Command and several major Space Force units are based, and Huntsville, Alabama, the longtime home of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the future headquarters of Space Command.
Florida has been through this before. Patrick Space Force Base was named a finalist in the last round of competition for U.S. Space Command headquarters, a contest Huntsville ultimately won.
The Space Coast’s pitch this time leans on activity that did not exist during that fight. Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and Kennedy Space Center now support the busiest launch cadence in the world, with SpaceX, Blue Origin, United Launch Alliance and others operating from the same stretch of coastline, alongside Space Launch Delta 45, Patrick Space Force Base, and a growing cluster of aerospace manufacturers and research programs.
What Happens Next
The commission’s report is due to the President within 120 days of the Aug. 28 order, placing the deadline in late December. That report is expected to include a recommendation on location, though the President has signaled he may move on a site decision sooner.
Media inquiries to the EDC can be directed to Edgar Campa-Palafox at (321) 638-2000 or edgarcp@SpaceCoastEDC.org.
The Space Coast Rocket will continue to follow the commission’s work and any announcement on the academy’s location.
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