Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
President Donald Trump awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to the Artemis II astronauts while outlining the administration's vision for the future of space.
The awards were given Friday to NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen during a ceremony at the Johnson Space Center on Friday.
During the ceremony, flanked by a mock spacecraft the astronauts trained in and a glass-encased moon rock, Trump signed an executive order he said will create an academy for the Space Force, comparing it to other military branch academies.
And days before the ceremony, Trump signed a national security memorandum aimed at “reinvigorating America’s leadership in space transportation and enabling more than 1,000 launches and reentries on American soil annually by 2030.”
According to the White House, the directive seeks to encourage public-private partnerships, speed permitting and environmental reviews, expand launch and reentry sites, support commercial transportation to the moon and explore sending humans to Mars.
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President Donald Trump awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to the Artemis II astronauts while outlining the administration's vision for the future of space.
The awards were given Friday to NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen during a ceremony at the Johnson Space Center on Friday.
During the ceremony, flanked by a mock spacecraft the astronauts trained in and a glass-encased moon rock, Trump signed an executive order he said will create an academy for the Space Force, comparing it to other military branch academies.
And days before the ceremony, Trump signed a national security memorandum aimed at “reinvigorating America’s leadership in space transportation and enabling more than 1,000 launches and reentries on American soil annually by 2030.”
According to the White House, the directive seeks to encourage public-private partnerships, speed permitting and environmental reviews, expand launch and reentry sites, support commercial transportation to the moon and explore sending humans to Mars.
-------------------------------------
Follow Scripps News on other platforms—
Join our newsletter at bit.ly/2q1tepr
Follow us on Facebook: facebook.com/scrippsnews
Follow us on X: https://x.com/scrippsnews
Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/scrippsnews
Follow us on TikTok: tiktok.com/@scrippsnews
