Seriously!
This would be the SIXTH federal service academy.
I looked on other sites.
Sounds like it’ll be similar to the US Merchant Marine Academy, which does commission active military officers (about 1/3 of grads), but which also produces grads for civilian sectors.
Site TBD, but Texas is believed to be in the running.
I would post a link, except that they all contain a certain banned word…
Here’s the order.
Wonder if its athletics will be division 1 like Army/Navy/Air Force, or division 3 like Coast Guard and Merchant Marine.
Will all the majors be STEM oriented?
I assume it needs Congress to fund it, and Congress should also want to actually enrshine this in statute. Still a long way to go before it is actually established beyond on paper.
I don’t know that we need another service academy, and wonder if it will take away from the others… but I have no issue with establishing one should it be needed.
Oh yes!
It’ll need a HUGE initial appropriation to build the campus, buildings, library, lab facilities, military training facilities, dorms, playing fields, etc.
Faculty have to be hired, curricula established, etc.
Lots of work to be done.
If we have one though, I sure hope it’s in Texas.
Again though, it may be more like the Merchant Marine Academy which is a sort of military/civilian hybrid.
I imagine it’ll train civilians for NASA and private space contractors as much as Space Force Officers.
These guys taught me about url shorteners. Works very well
Another question.
Will admission require a Congressional nomination, as with four of the service academies, or not, as in the case of the Coast Guard Academy?
Do you think they will run the wishbone?
If they are D1, then for sure they will run an option offense.
But the two d3 service academies don’t.
Watch the Secretaries’ Cup game someday.
I enjoy it more than the Army/Navy game.
I mean, to whatever extent space warrants its own branch of the armed forces, it would also warrant its own academy, right?
Not necessarily.
There is no Marine Corps Academy.
Likewise, there is no academy for the NOAA Commissioned Officers Corps.
There is a Marine Corp War College.
If no academy, how does one become a Marine Corp officer?
Either:
a) Marine Corps Officer Candidate School (OCS); the USMC is the only branch of the armed forces that relies on OCS as its largest commissioning source.
b) US Naval Academy (about 25% of their grads per year Commission in the USMC).
c) Marine option Naval ROTC (about 16% of the Officers commissioned through Naval ROTC annually commission in the USMC)
d) other military academies (Merchant Marine, rarely West Point, etc)
ROTC officers make up by far the largest groups of Army, Air Force, and (so far, it might change based on this latest announcement) Space Force Officers, and also make up a slight majority of newly commissioned Naval Officers. The Coast Guard is about 50/50 between OCS and the Coast Guard Academy.
NOAA Commissioned Corps Officers and US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps Officers have a completely distinct selection process.
At this time, NO branch of the armed forces relies on a service academy as its primary source of Commissioned Officers.
Perhaps the Space Force could become the first. WE’LL SEE!!!
As law pointed out, the Marines are part of the Navy.
I certainly hope so.
Well, to be fair, there could also be majors oriented towards procurement, acquisition, contractor management, and public policy, given how much of that there is in any government agency, and particularly in space related functions.
Just sayin’!
If you look at the current five service academies, three of them (Navy, Coast Guard, Air Force) generally try to stove pipe about 80% of their students into STEM fields.
At West Point, it’s about an even 50/50 split between STEM and humanities/social science majors, though all students have to take a core curriculum with a good deal of math and science, plus a three course engineering “sequence.”
At the Merchant Marine Academy, there are basically only two fields of study: Marine Transportation (drive a ship), and Marine Engineering (maintain a ship).
It all depends on the focus.
My guess is that any space academy will have about 80% STEM majors, and the rest with majors related to the areas I described in my opening paragraph.
We’ll see!
Now, regarding funding.
It is possible (though perhaps unlikely), that funding won’t be approved
You may recall that back in 2006-2007, and most strongly, in 2009-2011, US Public Service Academy, designed to train students for non-military careers in government agencies was also proposed.
It failed to obtain the funding needed to get started.
See here:
My guess though is that due to the military affiliation, this academy will indeed open and get funded.
Now you’re asking the important questions.
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