It's an important milestone for private spaceflight in more ways than one. On top of representing the first clearance, it also eliminates some of the vagueness surrounding regulation for private flights beyond Earth. That's crucial when companies like SpaceX want to land on Mars as soon as 2018, and likely don't want to waste time finding someone who can rubber stamp their flights. Eventually, this sort of regulatory procedure should become a non-event -- it'll just be a formality whenever a private outfit wants to venture deeper into space.