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Engineering professor if this mission might persuade the feds to give the civilian team their official astronaut wings. >> i know they are planning some semantical games because they are not official crew. so they changed the wording to say you have to be a crewmember to get your astronaut wings. i think it's a little silly. i think just give it to them. they flew 100 miles above the space station. i think that earns them the right to have their astronaut wings personally. >> the civilian crew went through seven months of training prior to this mission, which in a few minutes will come complet...

>> i was about to say, sit back and relax is something i wouldn't be able to do. walk us through what this experience is like, specifically to land in water given that these are not trained astronauts. at the top of the hour, you're watching "american voices" and we're moments away from splashdown of inspiration 4 carrying the first civilian crew to orbit the earth. leeroy, tell us what it's like for the astronauts? >> they've been prepared and trained. it's an autonomous vehicle, so there's very little for the crew to do flyingwise. it's a capsule vehicle, so they have done their preparations...

As they egress the vehicle. it won't just be all of them getting out at once. they will follow procedures. i believe they will be starting with egress of seat one. >> jon: the successful splashdown of the space x crew dragon capsule inspiration four prosides a number of firsts -- provides a number of firsts. i will read some of them. first all civilian human space flight into orbit. we have talked about that. the first black female spacecraft pilot is on board. that being dr. sian proctor, the youngest american ever to go to space is on board, hayley

For the future of commercial space flight. so i'll be eagerly watching, and hopefully being part of that as well. >> doctor, very quickly, your final thoughts? >> oh, just wonderful to see american ingenuity at work. and getting us back into space in a commercial way. and thanks for helping me relive some of my memories, again, too. >> yes, i imagine that this is a very nostalgic day. kendis, leroy, doctor, thank you all for spending some time with us. and as we wrap up live coverage of this historic splashdown in florida, another bit of history to celebrate because there is a new broadcast de...

Much has expectation met reality in that regard, kendis? >> reporter: 1000%, i would say. it has been the sort of precision that take place when it comes to space travel. the re-entry, the orbiting process started exactly at 6:16 p.m. the splashdown, right at 7:06 p.m. as well. all the process you see here now is just what was expected to take place. we'll lose a small there from what i can see from the feed shortly. but they're expected to have a press conference less than an hour from now. what we call the phoner, the press conference with mission control folks. it's expected to be roughly a...