SpaceX says it will fly a spacecraft to Mars as soon as 2018 - The Washington Post

Part of a NASA/SpaceX partnership to send humans to Mars in the 2030s

"Elon Musk’s SpaceX plans to land an unmanned spacecraft on Mars as soon as 2018 with the help of NASA, an extraordinary collaboration between the public and private sectors in an effort to eventually get humans to the Red Planet.

SpaceX made the announcement on Twitter Wednesday, laying out an ambitious timeline for an incredibly difficult mission that only governments have dared try. Landing a spacecraft or a robot that can then operate successfully on the Martian surface is so difficult that the U.S. is the only country to have done it, and many attempts over the years have failed."

SpaceX says it will fly a spacecraft to Mars as soon as 2018 - The Washington Post