The Chocolatier and the Rocketeer

When the seven astronauts aboard the space shuttle Endeavor wake up tomorrow morning next to the international space station, they probably won’t go on an Easter egg hunt.

They may, however, go looking for chocolate-covered peanut butter candies made by Cardinal Confections of Fleetwood and carried into space by NASA mission specialist Michael J. Foreman.

"An Easter morning candy hunt is not something that would be on the official schedule," NASA spokesman Rob Lazaro said Friday. "However, the astronauts do like to do things that make them feel connected, more at home."

Lazaro said each astronaut is allowed to take a fresh food item along on the shuttle mission.

"It’s usually a favorite snack," Lazaro said.

Foreman’s brother, Paul Foreman, and Paul’s fiancee, Melissa Schartel, both of Fleetwood, for years have made a variety of chocolatecovered candies and offered them for sale in the Fleetwood area at Easter time.

"My brother Mike loves the chocolate-covered peanut butter ones and when he heard he was going on a shuttle mission he told me he had to take some along," Paul said.

In a sweet bit of history, shuttle commander Dominic L. Pudwill Gorie can be seen presenting a small box of the chocolates to space station commander Peggy Witson.

"You can’t really see our label, but you can see the box," Paul said. "I was watching the ‘Welcome Aboard’ video on NASA-TV and couldn’t believe it when I saw it."

Mike told Paul that Whitson’s birthday is in March and he wanted to give her a box of peanut butter eggs as a gift.

"Mike called and said, ‘Get me some candy,’ " according to Melissa. "We overnighted it to him."

"I sent him 3 pounds for the mission and 2 pounds for testing," Paul said. "I actually overnighted it twice, one FedEx and one U.S Postal Service just in case something happened to one of them." Paul said he believes Cardinal Confections’ peanut butter candies may be the first NASA-certified chocolate in space.

Mike has been doing yeomanlike work on the shuttle mission, including participating in three of five scheduled spacewalks to deliver Kibo (a Japanese space laboratory), Dextre (a Canadian repair robot) and making various repairs.

NASA’s Lazaro said the peanut butter candies had to undergo rigorous scientific testing before being cleared for the mission.

"The medical technicians give it the once over to be sure there were no biological problems and after that it has to pass two big tests: Does it make crumbs and will it spoil?" Lazaro said.

The candies were not subjected to G-force testing in a centrifuge, weightlessness or other rigorous tests expected of astronauts.

"The liftoff is actually about what you would feel on a roller coaster," Lazaro said. "It’s about 3Gs. A fighter jet would be much more intense."

Melissa makes the candies using a recipe handed down by her late maternal and paternal grandmothers, Ruth Filbert and Ida Eckert.

"I started making them with my sister, Lynee, to make extra money for our kids," Melissa said. "Lynee died in 2004 and told me if she ever comes back it would be as a cardinal."

The sisters started selling them at the V&S sandwich shop where Melissa used to work. Now they’re sold at Maidencreek Beverage at Routes 72 and 222, and Global Libations on Main Street in Kutztown. Paul and Melissa said they aren’t sure what if any impact their chocolates’ foray into space will have on local sales.

"We can’t make enough of them at Easter time as it is," Paul said. "But this can’t hurt."