Elon Musk says that SpaceX will land human beings on Mars in 10 years, in a worst case scenario, and ideally sooner.

The tech billionaire made the surprising remark during an episode of the Lex Fridman Podcast which was posted on Tuesday.


"Best case is about five years, worst case 10 years," Musk said after Fridman asked him how long it would take to land humans on Mars.

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Musk continued saying that "engineering the vehicle" was a major factor in the timeline for reaching Mars, plugging SpaceX's "Starship" project as a likely candidate for the task.

"SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket (collectively referred to as Starship) represent a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond," SpaceX's website says of the craft.

"Starship is the most complex and advanced rocket that's ever been made," Musk told Fridman. "The fundamental optimization of Starship is minimizing the cost per ton to orbit and ultimately cost per ton to the surface of Mars."


Musk has previously given date estimates for making a trip to Mars. In February, he said that it will take "five and a half years" before a manned mission of SpaceX's Starship rocket could land on the planet.

In March, Musk tweeted that SpaceX would accomplish the task "well before 2030."


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Musk has also said he plans on building 1,000 Starship rockets and launching three of them a day to transport one million people to Mars.