May 3, 2026

— The self-labeled "first candy in space" has made it to the moon.

M&M's, made by Mars, Inc., is now known to have been on board NASA's first mission to fly astronauts by the moon in more than 50 years. What's more, it was also the first food the Artemis II crew members had upon their return to Earth.

"When we landed, we splashed down in the Pacific Ocean and we were waiting for the rescue persons to come and open the hatch," said Reid Wiseman, commander of the 10-day Artemis II mission, setting the scene during a CBS Mornings' town hall broadcast live on Friday (May 1).

Mission specialist Christina Koch reached into her spacesuit pocket and, pulling out a small packet, asked her crewmates, "'I've got some Peanut M&M's, does anybody want some?'" Wiseman recalled. "So we're leaning back against the side of the spacecraft, we had just come back from the moon, and we're just eating Peanut M&M's."

"We were happy," he said, speaking on behalf of Koch, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen.

The multi-color "candy-coated chocolates" — as NASA labels plain M&M's to avoid any appearance of endorsement — has been a staple of U.S. spaceflight since March 1982. The third crew of NASA's former space shuttle program were the first to take M&M's to space (STS-4, launched later that same year, were the first astronauts to eat them in Earth orbit). Peanut M&M's joined the zero-gravity menu in 1984.

The candies "melt in your mouth, not in your hand, or, in this case, your hot space shuttle," the company said in 1982 release. Since then, they have been on board Russia's former space station Mir, the International Space Station and the world's first commercial spacecraft, SpaceShipOne. (Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon, chose Mars' other bite-sized treat, Skittles, to inaugurate the first flight on Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket in 2021.)

It was not clear that M&M's had made it onto the Artemis II Orion spacecraft until Wiseman's comments on Friday. Prior to the mission launching, NASA shared only a summary of the astronauts' food choices and there was no mention of M&M's (or, for that matter, Nutella).

There was a moment during the mission's live video, however, that appeared to show Wiseman open a clear pouch of the candies and toss one for Hansen to catch in his mouth. The first pitch got away, but Hansen succeeded on his second try and appeared to enjoy the sweet as his reward.

Artemis II crew plays with and eats M&M's. Click to enlarge in new pop-up window. (NASA)

Although M&M's were developed in the 1940s as a convenient form of chocolate for World War II troops, they were not included aboard NASA's Apollo landing landing missions. Their flight on early space shuttle missions led Mars to declare M&M's the "first candy in space," but there were earlier examples, which also first to flew to the moon.

Life Savers, which is now owned by Mars, was a favorite of the Apollo-era astronauts because the cherry variety was said to combat nausea brought on by the microgravity environment of space. A menu for the Apollo 11 crew, also included "chocolate cubes," "jellied fruit candy," "caramel candy" and a "candy bar" among the sweets flown on the first moon landing mission in 1969.

And then there was Hershey, which collaborated with NASA to fly a version of its Tropical chocolate bar on board Apollo 15 in 1971. Like Mars' M&M's, the bar was originally devised for soldiers as a heat-resistant treat.

"As NASA's Artemis II mission brought humanity back toward the moon, we were reminded that exploration has always been fueled by innovation — and a little sweetness,' the Hershey company wrote on social media during the April flight.