Elon Musk says SpaceX will land humans on Mars in 10 years in the worst-case scenario

• Elon Musk said SpaceX will land humans on Mars in 10 years in the worst-case scenario.
• Engineering of Starship and bringing down the costs are the determining factors.

Elon Musk said SpaceX will land humans on Mars with its Starship rocket in 10 years' time, in the worst-case scenario.

During an episode of the Lex Fridman Podcast released on Tuesday, Fridman asked Musk when he thinks SpaceX will land human beings on the Red Planet.

After a 20-second pause, the billionaire replied: "Best case is about five years, worst case 10 years."

Musk told Fridman that the determining factors included "engineering the vehicle," adding that "Starship is the most complex and advanced rocket that's ever been made."

"The fundamental optimization of Starship is minimizing the cost per ton to orbit and ultimately cost per ton to the surface of Mars," Musk told Fridman on the podcast.

Currently, nobody can fly to Mars for one trillion dollars, Musk told Fridman. "No amount of money can get you a ticket to Mars," he said on the podcast.

The SpaceX and Tesla CEO has forecasted various dates for his company reaching and landing on the Red Planet.

Musk said in an interview on the audio app Clubhouse in February that it will take "five and a half years" before a crewed mission of SpaceX's Starship rocket could land on the Red Planet.

Musk tweeted in March that his aerospace company would land its Starship rockets on Mars "well before" 2030.

Experts previously told Insider that it could take longer than he's predicting if things don't go exactly to plan during the three remaining launch opportunities before 2026.

Musk eventually plans to build 1,000 Starship rockets and launch three of them a day to fly one million people to the Red Planet.