Mike Melvill: First civilian astronaut.

"Beautiful sight, Mike," mission control said to Melvill as the gliding spaceship slowly circled toward its landing.

Later, standing on the tarmac beside the ship, Melvill said seeing the Earth from outside the atmosphere was "almost a religious experience."

"You can see the curvature of the Earth," he said. "You got a hell of a view from 60, 62 miles."

He also found time for a demonstration of weightlessness by opening a bag of M&M's candies and watching them float through the cockpit. "It was so cool," he said.

Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites) representative Patricia Grace Smith presented Melvill with the agency's first commercial astronaut wings.

--Yahoo! News - Plane Soars Out of Earth's Atmosphere