After 64 days in space, two NASA astronauts successfully made it back down to Earth on board a privately built vehicle, in what is being called a landmark mission.

U.S. astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley became the first crew to fly billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX-built Crew Dragon capsule to the International Space Station on 31 May, and back, marking a giant leap towards private travel to space.

Behnken and Hurley splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico on 2 August, to the sound of laughter and applause from the control room, in what was NASA's first crewed mission from home soil in nine years.

But for many, the mission, named Expedition 63, represented something much larger and was an important step in proving that a private vehicle could take astronauts into space and back safely.

What's so important about it?

"That was the first time ever in the history of mankind that a government entity [NASA] had outsourced and contracted out to a private company asking: 'can you take us up to the International Space Station – and potentially beyond, probably more to come – and back again safely?'" Danish private astronaut Per Wimmer told CGTN Europe's RAZOR program.

"That box has now been ticked and therefore the road is now paved for further missions to come," Wimmer added.

A space enthusiast himself, Wimmer bought a ticket to space 20 years ago, but various technological challenges meant he was unable to embark on the trip of a lifetime. Now, after the recent triumph of the SpaceX mission, Wimmer is one step closer to realizing his dream and hopes to be in space by next year.

"You cannot understate how big this is," Wimmer said. "It's truly a first time, and as a private astronaut, this is fantastically exciting, having seen and experienced that, and there was joy across the globe among the astronaut community," he added.

This isn't the first time, however, that private citizens have been to the International Space Station. Courtesy of the Russian program and the Soyuz capsules, a small number of private citizens have been to space on a paid basis so far.

But Wimmer says that because of the enormous price tag attached, only a limited number of people have been able to afford it or even put the time aside for it.

However, with more and more entrepreneurs turning their money and resources towards space exploration, this could be about to change.

Leading up to the successful SpaceX mission, NASA, aiming to galvanize a commercial space marketplace, had awarded nearly $8 billion to SpaceX and Boeing Co collectively in 2014 to develop dueling space capsules, experimenting with a contract model that allows the space agency to buy astronaut seats from the two companies.

But where Boeing failed to deliver the important milestone in human flight due to software glitches, billionaire entrepreneur Musk's SpaceX succeeded and became the first private company to send humans into orbit.

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said the successful mission marked "a new era of human space flight, where NASA is no longer the purchaser, owner and operator of all the hardware," but one of many future customers of space travel.

A new kind of space race?

"If we roll back time to the 1960s, it is true that the space business – which was mainly a government business, there was hardly any private involvement at that point – was effectively the extension of big international politics," Wimmer said. "It was basically a state funded space exploration race. We got to go further. We got to be first, etc. And it was just to show how great the states were," he added.  

But today, with increased pressure of budgets and costs on government space agencies like NASA, they have decided to outsource the certain aspects of space travel, such as building capsules.

This has, in turn, created a similar level of excitement to the earlier space race. "And the catalyst for that excitement is the involvement of private enterprise, private space companies, not just SpaceX, but a whole host of other companies that are involved here that are pushing the boundaries, that are seeing commercial opportunities," Wimmer said.

Musk is just one of the entrepreneurs who has looked to space for the development of new technologies.

"When you take a tech entrepreneur who's been very successful, who is used to disruptive thinking, and you then apply that thinking, or that philosophy, to private space, you get an enormous value added proposition then," Wimmer said.

"And that's the difference between when it was a state race and now where you'd say, I guess it's a private race. I mean, obviously, SpaceX is competing with Boeing, but at the same time, it's relatively friendly," he added.

What makes it so pioneering?

For private astronauts, the SpaceX mission has shown them that space is now essentially open. Space exploration is no longer dependent solely on government entities, but a more inclusive business venture.

"What happens when you do that is you create competition. Competition, like any other industry on Earth, creates improvement, lowering of cost, more efficiency, just like any other industry. That is exactly what we're seeing now," said Wimmer.

Innovative ideas such as those adopted by SpaceX by creating more sustainable technology for space travel, and reusing parts of the rockets and the capsule, that reduce costs, make space travel more accessible and readily available.

However, Wimmer says this doesn't necessarily mean anybody will easily be able to travel to space as there will still be some prerequisites.

"It's not going to be like, 'oh, what shall we do for the weekend, honey? Let's go to space.' It's not quite there yet, and it will never get there, because you have got to train, you've got to be exposed to these enormous G-forces," Wimmer said.

But what the successful SpaceX mission does prove for many is that involvement of private enterprise in space opens the doorway to more creativity, innovation and unlimited possibilities for the future of space exploration.

"We're at a dawn of probably one of the most exciting eras of space history," Wimmer said.