"As soon as we can get it going, we would want to start having some type of presence on the moon sustainably," she told Fortune.

Sunita Williams, 59, is a veteran astronaut with NASA and a retired U.S. Navy officer. She was born in Euclid, Ohio, and considers Needham, Massachusetts, her home. According to a biography from the U.

Former NASA astronaut José Hernández said Monday that travel to Mars is “a good 15 years away.” “As I’ve always said … space travel is not trivial, and so what we need to do next is, we’re going to retire the International Space Station,

"We’re a good 15 years away from going to Mars, not five years as Elon Musk alludes to," former NASA astronaut José Hernández told The Hill.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk suggested on a Wednesday episode of Senator Ted Cruz's podcast that while humans may not find living aliens on Mars, they could uncover the "ruins of a long-dead alien civilization" when they arrive on the planet—potentially within the next five years.