Arizona bids for United States Space Academy

Is Arizona the next frontier for space exploration? Governor Katie Hobbs recently formed a committee of top space experts. They're hoping to bring the new proposed United States Space Academy to our state. And tonight we're learning more about what the project would mean for Arizona. Fox 10's Andrew Christensen spoke with committee members and has more on this idea. Andrew. Well, think of this as a college, but just basically for space, where students would take classes about space and then specialize in a track specifically for an area of space exploration. Well, this committee would bring together people from all across Arizona, like Arizona State University, and what they would do is they would put together a proposal to convince the federal government that Arizona is a perfect spot for the Space Academy. So it's really about training the next generation of leaders for space exploration. Lori Leshin is a former NASA director and currently serves as Arizona State University's professor for space futures. The idea of a space academy really brings together lots of ideas that have been out there in the past into one. Leshen says the space academy would train graduates for NASA space missions. Space engineering or maybe space leadership and policy and business, space science, all of these things are aspects of the program. Leshen says Arizona has an advantage pointing to Arizona's long history of training astronauts for the Apollo and Artemis missions. And that is gonna draw new industry, new ideas, new missions from just having that here. Getting our name out there is gonna be valuable to kind of raise the profile of the state as a place that does world class work. Dr. Erica Hamden is also on the committee. She directs the University of Arizona's Space Institute. She says the university already has a proven track record with NASA, including working on the James Webb Space telescope. At the U of A, we've been building space hardware for NASA for decades. We have an instrument that we built that's on JWST. We did OSIRIS-REx, the sample return. If the Space Academy comes to Arizona, Hamden believes it would draw more top students to our state. I want there to be kind of a critical mass of activity, cuz then the companies come, they get good jobs, they can stay and have really happy, fruitful lives. And the proposal deadline is next month. Arizona is competing against other states like Texas and Ohio. Reporting at Arizona State University in Tempe, Andrew Christensen, Fox 10 News.