Southeast Asia launches its first space ambitions with Thai chicken

At the Thai Space Expo in Bangkok, someone sent basil chicken to orbit. Not as a joke — as proof of concept.

Charoen Pokphand Foods, Thailand's largest food company, packaged pad krapow gai (Thai basil chicken) aboard a rocket headed to the International Space Station. Astronauts ate it. The company is now marketing the dish as space-grade. It's the kind of detail that captures what's happening across Southeast Asia right now: the region is testing whether it belongs in the global space economy, and it's doing it with style.

Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand are all moving pieces into place. Thailand is planning its first spaceport — a significant advantage given the country sits near the equator, where Earth's rotation gives rockets a natural speed boost. Vietnam's VegaCosmos is using satellite data to improve urban planning. Thailand's Electricity Generating Authority watches rainstorms from space to predict landslides before they happen. A Seoul-based startup called Spacemap, which tracks satellites in orbit, has already attracted investment from the US Space Force.

These aren't vanity projects. They're practical applications of space technology solving problems on the ground. "Southeast Asia is perfectly positioned to take leadership as a space hub," says Candace Johnson, a partner at Seraphim Space, a UK investment firm operating in Singapore. The region has manufacturing expertise that could translate into better semiconductors for satellites or entirely new markets in in-space manufacturing — building things in orbit where gravity works differently.

The chicken stunt works as metaphor because it captures something real: Southeast Asia isn't waiting to be invited into the space sector. It's walking in through the front door with its own ideas, its own advantages, and a willingness to blend the practical with the symbolic. A region known for ancient temples and street food is now thinking about what happens when you combine both at 250 miles above Earth.

Thailand's spaceport, if built in the next few years, would be the first in Southeast Asia — filling a gap the country's Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency identified years ago. It's the kind of infrastructure that changes trajectories, both literally and economically.

The vision emerging from Bangkok suggests something worth watching: a region that's been on the receiving end of space technology is now building the capability to launch it.