Ever dream of living on another planet, well that dream may be closer than you think, at least according to Space X's Elon Musk. In an interview with NBC Elon Musk announced his plans to have boots on Mars before the end of the 2020's.

"I'm hopeful that the first people could be taken to Mars in 10 to 12 years, I think it's certainly possible for that to occur," Musk told CNBC. "But the thing that matters long term is to have a self-sustaining city on Mars, to make life multiplanetary."

Currently, Space X is going up against more establish aeronautical companies like Boeing to sell the US government its next vehicle to get to the international space station. If they get the contract to sell their Dragon V2 rocket, it will make big strides towards the Mars mission. If they don't, well they'll go for it anyway. 

"It's possible that we may not win the commercial crew contract. ... We'll do our best to continue on our own, with our own money," Elon Must said. "We would not be where we are today without the help of NASA."

"We need to get where things a steady and predictable," Musk said. "Maybe we're close to developing the Mars vehicle, or ideally we've flown it a few times, then I think going public would make more sense."

The problem is that this is a long term investment, that isn't going to immediately attract the big money of hedge funds, making it difficult for the company to transition to being publicly traded.

Elon Musk's longterm plan for Space X is to establish a human colony of about 80,000 people on Mars, a trip that will cost half a million dollars a head.

For the time being Musk plans to stay at Tesla motors, his other project, with the goal of making affordable electric cars within three years.