Last October, while most Malaysians were busy with their daily commutes and teh tarik, our foreign minister, Mohamad Hasan, quietly signed a document that could reshape this country’s economic trajectory for generations.
Malaysia became one of 61 nations to join the Artemis Accords, the American-led framework governing the peaceful exploration and commercial use of the moon.
Just a few days ago, on April 10, four US astronauts splashed down in the Pacific after orbiting the moon for the first time in over half a century, shattering a distance record that had stood since 1970.
The moon rush has officially begun. And for once, Malaysia has a seat at the table.
NASA’s Artemis II mission just proved that humans can get back to lunar orbit. The next steps are already locked in. Artemis III in mid-2027 will test rendezvous operations with lunar landers built by SpaceX and Blue Origin. Artemis IV in early 2028 aims to put boots on the lunar surface for the first time since 1972. Annual landings are planned from 2028 onwards.
The stated goal is not another flag-planting exercise. It is a permanent human presence on the moon.
On the other side of the geopolitical divide, China and Russia are planning to build an International Lunar Research Station, a permanent moon base near the south pole, with the first phase targeted for 2035. Beijing’s Chang’e 7 probe, launching later this year, will scout for water ice and other resources. Pakistan, Egypt and South Africa have signed on as partners.
Two competing lunar blocs. Two visions of who controls the most valuable real estate beyond Earth. And Malaysia, having signed the Artemis Accords, has planted its flag with the Americans.
So what does this actually mean for us? Right now, not much. But it could mean everything much later.
History is instructive here. When the semiconductor industry was in its infancy in the 1970s, most countries ignored it. A handful did not. Taiwan, then a poor agricultural economy, made a calculated bet on silicon manufacturing. It poured resources into building chip fabrication expertise, established TSMC in 1987, and spent decades cultivating an ecosystem of engineers, suppliers and research institutions.
Today, Taiwan produces over 90% of the world’s most advanced semiconductors. That single bet transformed it from a backwater into one of the most strategically important economies on earth.
The moon economy is at a similar inflection point. Morgan Stanley projects the global space economy will be worth RM4.4 trillion by 2040. The lunar surface is rich in helium-3, a rare isotope essential for quantum computing and potentially transformative for fusion energy.
Water ice at the poles can be split into hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel, turning the moon into a refuelling station for deep space missions. Rare earth elements embedded in lunar soil are critical for the magnets, sensors and electronics that power everything from electric vehicles to military hardware.
Whoever builds the infrastructure to extract these resources will control the commanding heights of the 21st century economy. Malaysia does not need to mine the moon. But we can be part of the supply chain that makes it possible.
Consider what we already have. The Malaysian Space Agency, MYSA, has set a target of contributing RM10 billion to GDP and creating 5,000 jobs in the space sector by 2030.
Seventy-nine local companies entered the space industry between 2017 and 2023. And perhaps most intriguingly, the Pahang Aerospace City project is developing Southeast Asia’s first international spaceport, in partnership with China Great Wall Industry Corporation, no less.
We signed the Artemis Accords with the Americans while simultaneously building launch infrastructure with the Chinese. That is not confusion. That is strategic hedging of the shrewdest kind.
But we need to think bigger. Much bigger.
The lunar economy will need advanced robotics, radiation-hardened electronics, precision sensors, life support systems, lightweight composite materials and AI-driven autonomous systems. Every single one of these is a high-value niche that Malaysia could carve out for itself, if we invest now.
The playbook is not complicated. Leverage our Artemis Accords membership to forge deeper partnerships with NASA, SpaceX, Blue Origin and the dozens of smaller firms building lunar infrastructure.
Direct a meaningful portion of our research and development budget towards space-adjacent technologies. And position Malaysian universities and research institutions as credible contributors to lunar science and engineering.
South Korea did something remarkably similar with its semiconductor industry, ramping R&D spending to around 5% of GDP and building Samsung and SK Hynix into global powerhouses. Israel did it with defence technology. Singapore did it with biomedical sciences.
None of these countries had obvious natural advantages in these fields. What they had was political will and a willingness to bet on the future.
The Artemis programme has already cost American taxpayers more than RM176 billion in development alone, with each rocket launch running roughly RM16.4 billion. That kind of spending creates an enormous gravitational pull for downstream industries.
The question is whether Malaysia positions itself to catch some of that momentum, or whether we sit on the sidelines and watch as others build the industries of tomorrow.
We have done this before, to our detriment. We had Grab in our hands and let it slip to Singapore. We built a semiconductor industry in Penang before Taiwan had TSMC, yet spent five decades stuck in assembly and packaging while Taiwan cornered the far more lucrative business of actually making the chips.
We cannot afford to make the same mistake with the space economy.
The moon is no longer science fiction. It is a construction site, a mining frontier and a geopolitical chessboard. Malaysia just signed up. Now it is time to show up.
The writer can be contacted at [email protected].
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.