Mayor Clark McClane, speaking to the Jasper Economic Development Board of Directors Thursday, asked them to support Jasper as a site for a United States Space Academy.
McClane said the proposed government project site is now “between Jasper and Conroe.”
The mayor handed out a letter from STI Group Space Travel Infrastructure in Orange that outlined assets in Jasper County that are useful to the space industry and training.
The letter is in support of Jasper as the site of the United States
Space Academy.
It is addressed
To the Presidential Commission on the United States Space Academy.
The letter reads:
“Dear Members of the Commission:
On behalf of STI Group, I am writing to give our full support to Jasper, Texas as the permanent home of the United States Space Academy. Executive Order 14423, signed August 28, 2026, asks the Presidential Commission to recommend a site-selection process by December 26, 2026.”
“We urge the State of Texas to put Jasper forward as its site when it submits its proposal to NASA this month, and we urge the Commission to select it. We are proud to stand with the J-USSA Group as a committed industry partner.
Deep East and Southeast Texas build things. Our region already supplies the fabrication, construction and skilled-trade workforce that large national programs require. “
“A Space Academy in Jasper would put America’s next generation of space leaders beside the industrial base that will build what they design.”
“Since 1978, STI Group has been a trusted partner in building critical infrastructure for industries that shape the future. Privately owned and headquartered in Orange, Texas, STI has more than 1,500 employees and is the largest U.S.-based aerospace ground infrastructure construction and fabrication company.
STI’s Space Travel Infrastructure division brings that legacy of integrity, safety, quality and fairness to private space exploration. As a total solutions provider, it delivers comprehensive construction and fabrication from the ground up.”
“STI’s broader industrial work is at www.setxind.com.
Certifications: ASME U and S stamps, NBIC R stamp, and API, with a full QA/QC program across shop and field work
Capacity: more than 500,000 square feet of indoor heavy fabrication space running two shifts, with facilities in Orange, Buna, Beaumont, Port Arthur, Bridge City, Vidor, Lufkin and South Texas
Location: our Buna operations sit on U.S. Highway 96, the direct corridor north to Jasper.”
The letter says “Water connects it all. NASA already moves its largest rocket stages by barge along the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, linking Michoud, Stennis, Marshall and Kennedy. The Sabine-Neches ports sit on that same waterway.”
Training hardware, test articles and large structures built in Southeast Texas can move by water to every major NASA site on the Gulf and to Florida.
Land and rail. US. Highways 96 and 190 tie Jasper to interstate 10 and the ports. The Port of Beaumont alone is served by three major railroads, five major roadways and the Intracoastal Waterway. Jasper also sits on the congressionally designated route of future Interstate 14, championed by Rep. Brian Babin, which follows U.S. 190 through the city. Once complete, it will give the Academy direct interstate access to Fort Hood, Central Texas and Louisiana.”
“The Beaumont-Port Arthur-Orange industrial corridor holds one of the country’s deepest pools of welders,pipefitters, millwrights, instrument technicians, inspectors and engineers. These are the trades that build launch pads, test stands, propellant systems and ground support equipment. STI Group alone employs more than 1,000 dedicated aerospace construction workers from Jasper and the surrounding towns, and we expect that number to grow exponentially.”
“The center of American launch activity is moving fast, across the state line. Space X already flies 28% of all U.S. orbital launches: 165 of the nation’s 192 in 2025. Its $100 billion Starbase Louisiana at Pecan Island will ultimately host more than 30 Starship flights per day from over a dozen launch towers.
What Texas needs is a geographic link between its human spaceflight center and the launch site that will set the nation’s pace.
Jasper is that link. It sits almost exactly midway, 114 miles from Johnson Space Center and 128 miles from Garbase Louisiana, on the Texas side of the line. A site near Houston would only add to what Texas already has around JC.
A Space Academy in Jasper would anchor the link between JSC and the busiest launch site on Earth in Texas, so the people who fly, operate and lead America’s space program are trained in Texas, in reach of both.”
McClane asked JEDCO board members to ask all citizens to get behind the proposed space academy project.