Elon Musk says SpaceX is taking people to Mars in the next 10 years

For the past few years, Elon Musk has been working on getting humans to land and establish a colony on Mars. In a recent interview, the eccentric billionaire owner of SpaceX said that he expects humans to begin traveling to the planet as early as the next 10 years.

Musk was recently the featured guest on a Lex Fridman podcast, where the billionaire spoke of his plans to take humans to a new planet. When asked when he thought SpaceX will land a human being on Mars, Musk responded with, “best case is about five years, worst case 10 years.”

As of right now, Musk says that engineering the rocket vehicle to get humans to a new planet is still the biggest obstacle. “Starship is the most advanced rocket that’s ever been made,” he says of the company’s newest in-development rocket, but there’s still “no amount of money that could get you to Mars.”

READ MORE: Will Elon Musk go to Mars?

Musk went on to say that SpaceX engineers are working hard to bring the cost of launching the Starship rocket down drastically. “We need to get that [cost] to, like, something that is actually possible at all.”

SpaceX has recently begun construction in Florida on a new launchpad designed specifically for the Starship vehicle. If everything goes according to plan, Musk says that the company will be prepared for its first orbital test flight of the Starship from the new “Starbase” launchpad sometime in January or February.

When we first started hearing about Musk’s plans to colonize Mars, there was, no doubt, a lot of skepticism and many people likely laughed the eccentric engineer off. But SpaceX has made some incredible progress over the years, and it looks like the new Starship vehicle is another giant leap.

READ MORE: SpaceX wants to launch a whopping 52 missions into space this year

Who knows, maybe we’ll be hanging out with Spock and the rest of the Vulcans before ole Musky is finished.

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