Space Station Crew Running Low on Chocolate for Easter

Astronaut Peggy Whitson
Astronaut Peggy Whitson looks cheerful as she tells a member of the media that she and the other station crewmembers are running low on chocolate ahead of Easter (April 16). (Image credit: NASA TV)

This Sunday (April 16) is Easter, but the current occupants of the International Space Station are running low on one crucial supply item for the holiday.

"I think we're actually a little short on chocolate right now," NASA astronaut and current space station commander Peggy Whitson said during a media interview Thursday (April 13). Chocolate is considered by many to be a staple of the holiday, and NASA has not specified how or when it plans to amend confectionary conundrum.

Whitson then added, "Maybe when the next Soyuz crew comes up, we'll get a little more chocolate." A Russian Soyuz spacecraft is set to launch toward the station on April 20. An Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo craft is also scheduled to travel to the station on April 18. 

Whitson didn't indicate if the crew had any special plans for the Easter holiday. She is currently joined on the station by European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet of France ("Thomas and I kind of like chocolate," Whitson said) and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy. NASA astronaut Jack Fischer and Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin are scheduled to fly to the station aboard the Soyuz on April 20. 

In the past, space station crews have celebrated the holiday with plastic Easter egg hunts

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Calla Cofield
Senior Writer

Calla Cofield joined Space.com's crew in October 2014. She enjoys writing about black holes, exploding stars, ripples in space-time, science in comic books, and all the mysteries of the cosmos. Prior to joining Space.com Calla worked as a freelance writer, with her work appearing in APS News, Symmetry magazine, Scientific American, Nature News, Physics World, and others. From 2010 to 2014 she was a producer for The Physics Central Podcast. Previously, Calla worked at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City (hands down the best office building ever) and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California. Calla studied physics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and is originally from Sandy, Utah. In 2018, Calla left Space.com to join NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory media team where she oversees astronomy, physics, exoplanets and the Cold Atom Lab mission. She has been underground at three of the largest particle accelerators in the world and would really like to know what the heck dark matter is. Contact Calla via: E-Mail – Twitter