SpaceX's Gwynne Shotwell expects humans to land on Mars by 2030.
The company president and COO told CNBC's Shepard Smith that "we should put people on the surface of Mars [...] within a decade," before amending her statement to "in this decade." Folks will inhabit the Moon "sooner," she added.
"I think we need to get a large delivery to the surface of Mars, and then people will start thinking harder about it," Shotwell said in the CNBC video. "And then, I think, within five or six years, people will see that that will be a real place to go."
Shotwell herself has no plans to make the six-month journey to the Red Planet, revealing during a recent engineering conference, as reported by Bloomberg that "I don't like camping."
SpaceX, which is still awaiting regulatory approvals for its next-generation Starship program, has already lined up several Moon missions, including a 2023 trip by billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, as well as potentially playing a role in NASA's upcoming Artemis program.
The real next frontier, though, is Mars—exploration of which is "inevitable," Shotwell said in the conference's keynote presentation. SpaceX in March ended production of new Crew Dragon astronaut capsules, capping the convoy at four and turning its focus toward Starship, instead.