Colorado will propose Colorado Springs as the home of the United States Space Academy, a civilian school that President Donald Trump has proposed and NASA would run. The state’s response, which must name a site, is due Nov. 16.
Gov. Jared Polis announced the bid on Oct. 23 at America the Beautiful Park in Colorado Springs, alongside Mayor Yemi Mobolade and university and business leaders. The state’s formal response goes to NASA by Nov. 16. A presidential commission is due to report by Dec. 26, and the choice of a site rests with the president.
The academy would need a campus of at least 300 acres, ready for 1,200 students by 2031 and with room for about 4,000. Colorado has not said where in the Colorado Springs area it would build one, or what land or money the state would put toward it. Polis said both would be in the proposal.
What the academy is
Trump signed Executive Order 14423 on Aug. 28. It does not create an academy. It sets up a presidential commission, chaired by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, to work out how one would be governed, what it would teach, who could apply and how its permanent home would be chosen. The order describes “a proposed NASA-led Federal academy dedicated to combining rigorous technical education with leadership development, discipline, and a durable commitment to public service.”
That would make it a different institution from the Air Force Academy north of Colorado Springs. NASA’s request to the states calls it a “civilian Federal academic institution” that would prepare scientists, engineers, astronauts, pilots, entrepreneurs, civil servants and “warfighters.” Whether graduates would owe service in the armed forces or the civilian federal government is one of the questions the order leaves to the commission.
What NASA asked the states for
NASA published its request on Sept. 10 and later moved the deadline from Oct. 26 to Nov. 16. Each state may send one response, from an organization its governor designates in writing. It is a request for information, and NASA says a formal call for proposals may follow.
It sets out two stages. About 300 students would begin classes in 2028 at one or more partner institutions, before the academy has a campus or accreditation of its own. A permanent campus on at least 300 acres of developable land would follow, with a groundbreaking no later than 2027, room for 1,200 undergraduates by fall 2031 and space to grow to about 4,000.
For each proposed site, states are asked about electricity, roads, broadband and water supply, including “any drought, allocation, or treatment constraints,” and about wildfire and other natural hazards. NASA also wants to know how close the site is to an international airport, to NASA or other federal facilities, to universities and to aerospace companies. States are asked for a rough estimate of the cost and for the land, buildings, infrastructure or services that state and local governments or other partners could contribute.
NASA will rank the responses for the commission, which is not bound by the ranking. NASA has said it does not plan to publish the states’ responses.
What Colorado has said
The response is being prepared by the Colorado Space Coalition, an aerospace industry group that is part of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation. It is co-chaired by Lt. Gov. Dianne Primavera and Ronald Sega. The governor’s office lists the state’s public universities and community colleges, the City of Colorado Springs, El Paso County, the Colorado Springs Chamber & EDC and state agencies among the partners.
The University of Colorado Colorado Springs would be the academy’s temporary home, hosting “instruction, housing, and student life for the first 300 students beginning in 2028,” Todd Saliman, the University of Colorado’s president, said at the announcement.
At the announcement, the state’s bid team said it had put out a call for sites about two weeks earlier and was choosing “the site that will be most competitive for this academy,” which will be named in the proposal.
Asked where the money would come from, Polis said there would be federal funding and that “you’ll see some of that in the November proposal.” He and other officials would not say whether the state would put up money of its own, the Gazette reported. In Texas, members of the board of the Texas Space Commission, a state body that makes grants to space companies and researchers, discussed offering up to $100 million at a Sept. 23 meeting, Houston Public Media reported. The discussion was not binding.
When the Air Force Academy was being sited in 1954, Colorado’s legislature set aside $1 million to buy land for it before the Air Force chose Colorado Springs, as The Independent reported this month.
The bid follows the Trump administration’s decision in September 2025 to move U.S. Space Command’s headquarters from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama, which Colorado’s attorney general has challenged in court.
Who else wants it
Texas, home of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, where Trump signed the order, has a bid team appointed by its governor. Officials in Florida, Ohio, Alabama, West Virginia, Arizona and Louisiana have said publicly that they are preparing proposals or want the academy, according to Houston Public Media. Isaacman said in late September that “every state in the country has taken interest,” Bay News 9 reported.
Polis said he expected Colorado to be among the three or four states on the short list.
The case against it
Sen. John Hickenlooper, a Colorado Democrat, called the plan “duplicative, costly, and unserious” on the day it was announced. “Our nation already has an exceptional institution that trains tomorrow’s Space Force leaders: it’s called the U.S. Air Force Academy,” he said. Of the Air Force Academy’s 931 graduates in 2026, 94 were assigned to the Space Force, the Gazette reported in August.
Asked at the announcement how the new academy would differ from the Air Force Academy, and whether it might draw talent from its Space Force programs, Polis said the two were “completely different.” The Space Academy “transcends any particular branch of the military and includes non-military, frankly,” he said. “It is not officer training for one particular branch of the armed forces.”
The order carries no money of its own. It says the work is “subject to the availability of appropriations,” and putting the commission’s plan into effect may require action by Congress. Isaacman has said the academy’s early budget would be on par with that of the Coast Guard or Merchant Marine academies, according to Bay News 9.
What happens next
Colorado’s response is due at 4 p.m. Mountain time on Nov. 16, and the commission’s report on Dec. 26. NASA has said no date has been set for choosing the site.
Sources & further reading
The Independent’s own coverage: Before the Cadets: What the Air Force Bought North of Colorado Springs, on how Colorado bought the Air Force Academy’s land in 1954–57 · Crank and Killin Answer Our Questions, which covers the decision to move Space Command.
Federal record: Executive Order 14423, Establishing the United States Space Academy · White House fact sheet · NASA announcement and deadline extension · NASA’s request for information and its questions and answers, NASA-USSA-RFI
State of Colorado: Governor’s announcement, Oct. 23 · Colorado Space Coalition
Reporting: Gazette, Oct. 23 · Gazette, Aug. 28 · The Colorado Sun, Oct. 23 · FOX21, Oct. 23, with video of the full announcement · Houston Public Media, via TPR, Oct. 20 · Bay News 9, Oct. 1
Statements: Sen. John Hickenlooper, Aug. 28
Methodology
Quotations from the Oct. 23 announcement come from FOX21’s video of the full event, which The Independent transcribed with automatic speech recognition. Machine transcription misrenders names and garbles figures and carries no speaker labels, so names were taken from the governor’s office announcement, speakers were identified by the introductions on the recording, and quotations that FOX21 or the Gazette also published were compared with their wording. NASA’s requirements are taken from its request for information and its published answers to states’ questions, both read in full.
Using this reporting? Credit The Monument Independent and link to this article: https://monumentindependent.com/government/colorado-springs-space-academy-bid/. Our guidelines are at Using Our Reporting.
