Living on Mars in 25 years

Hey

I just saw an interview with swedish astronaut Christer Fuglesang on a program on norwegian TV2 tonight. He has recently written a book on his 13 days in orbit/space aboard the STS-116 Shuttle mission from december 10th to 22th, 2006! (I know that's 12 days, but he left 02.47 and came back 23.32 norwegian time, so that's more 13 days than 12.)
In the closing in his book me mentions that there will surely be intelligent life on other planets in very short time! When he was asked what he ment about that statement, he told us that he was convinced that in very short time humans WILL live on Mars. There will not be many at first, but there WILL be NASA (or other) workstations on Mars in 25 years time or so.

He also compaired Mars to America! When Columbus "revisited" America, over a 100 years went by before people started moving there from Europe. The same thing will happen Mars, he claims!

I hope he's right!