"We'll probably put a first man in space in about three years," Elon Musk told the Wall Street Journal Saturday. "We're going all the way to Mars, I think... best case 10 years, worst case 15 to 20 years."
It's pretty obvious from the context though. SpaceX's vehicles are capable of putting robots on Mars right now and will probably due so as part of some future NASA, ESA, etc. contract within the next 5 years, easily.
Do you think so? A Martian lander is an easier job than an Earth lander, and they've already built one of those. In fact, there was the story here the other about how a Dragon can theoretically land on Mars, so if they just manage to build a big enough booster it should be well within their capabilities.
Still very expensive, of course... they'd need to talk someone into paying for it.
Why would a Martian lander be easier? On earth you get to use parachutes. The Martian atmosphere is too thin to use parachutes for any significant payload.
I know SpaceX is planning on a thrust-based landign system for Dragon, but the "lander" they've "already built" relies on parachutes.
He didn't say it's necessarily man on Mars.