Presumably they will have a buoy (boy) as before, but we'll get much better views of the Starship landing. I'm expecting now Trump is in place Musk will be pestering him to get the FAA to speed up its licence approvals for subsequent flights. He wants to fly the next test flight as soon as possible, which seems to be a couple of months from the last one and to think that Starhopper, that 'small' thing they've moved to the side of the road by the launch pads, only flew in 2019. Just incredible.

The FAA never considered such a rapid flight cadence for anything and need to change their methodologies to cope. They already appear almost out of their depth dealing with SpaceX but once Blue Origin start more than test flights, and perhaps one or two more small-fry begin rapid cadence development flights, the FAA will be desperately doggy-paddling in their own bureaucracy.

The FAA will have to move to a model like they use for aircraft when the rocket becomes reusable and the cadence is high. But still retaining the high levels of inspection for each flight for experimental rockets.

With the current SpaceX rockets, I believe it should be a mix - type certification for the reusable elements and higher levels of inspection for each of the major new parts.

The 'no go' zones for aircraft and ships will probably be the limiting factor on frequency of launches.

Time to make those exclusion zones permanent for aircraft, but perhaps voluntary for ships/boats.

The FAA have really stepped up to deal with 100-150 Falcon 9 launches per year compared to the dozen or so launches old space used to do. Licensing a repeat Starlink does not require much effort. The difficulty starts when SpaceX wants to trim down procedures to make Falcon launches a little cheaper. This was never of any interest to old space but is something SpaceX does continously. Licensing a new rocket takes much more work. There are several new rockets coming into operation and each Starship is significantly different from the last making each of them effectively a new rocket.

On top of that, the FAA is tasked with drafting the laws that will regulate rocket launches in future so much of licensing will be based on generalised law rather than one-off examinations for each design / change / launch. This was put on hold for years because no-one knew what the laws should be and the deadline was extended a few more years because new space is still new.

The FAA got into trouble for letting Boeing self regulate and the resulting deaths. As a result they are stricter about following procedure. This makes them open to politicians gaming of the system. For example, SpaceX changed the expected noise levels shortly before the anticipated launch of IFT5. The FAA was required by regulations to ask the FWS to assess the impact of the changes and allow them 60 days to do it. This was followed by people screaming on the internet about government regulations strangling innovation. In the middle of the screaming a SpaceX lawyer published some drivel about SpaceX being fined for not conducting a T-60 minute go/no go poll*. It was clear that the FWS was going to come back with a FONSI (finding of no significant impact) within a few days. Step forward a politician to summon the FAA for a scolding. The politician than accepted credit for expediting the IFT5 license. If the population of the internet were any more gullible politicians would take credit for making the sun rise.

* SpaceX did not conduct the poll and were fined but according to the lawyer there was no regulation requiring such a poll. In fact there was - and it was cited on the notice for the fine. The regulation was written by experts in launching Falcon 9s: SpaceX. To be fair, SpaceX had put in a change request and the FAA would likely have approved it given a bit more time. Perhaps without Boeing's help this might have gone by unremarked. Perhaps if SpaceX had not launched SN8 while the FAA was on the phone to them telling them they did not have a license they might have got away with a mild scolding. Part of the fallout for SN8 was that SpaceX was required to appoint a licensing officer with the authority to stop a launch if the license was not valid - and to phone the FAA and ask if he wasn't sure.

each Starship is significantly different from the last making each of them effectively a new rocket.

It is possible to imagine a regime that just considered the impact of each change. if the previous launch was considered safe and nothing happened to question that decision then a change to improve the thermal protection of flaps and additional structural rigidity oughtn't to be too hard to consider.

No, they don't draft laws, only (federal) regulations.

The USA has a long delay between the election and presidential inauguration. The next inauguration will be 2025-01-20. The election threat was to put Musk in charge of stream lining government. Obvious first targets include the [1]NTSB and [2]FWS . [3]OSHA and [4]DOL also spring to mind. It gets even more interesting when Musk turns his mind to clearing out all the regulations preventing X from operating as a bank.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Transportation_Safety_Board

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Fish_and_Wildlife_Service

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_Safety_and_Health_Administration

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Labor

Don't forget easing the regulations regarding self-driving cars. If they can't make the cars good enough to meet the regulations, bring the regulations down to meet the level of the car.

It used to be much longer, but back then, we had to coordinate elections across half a continent by snail mail and courier.

He'll be needing to start his own private army as well, let's call them the Elon Musketeers.

I've been doing a lot of skim reading in these last few days, so maybe I'd missed something - has the Orange Shit-Gibbon-Elect been renamed "The Super Heavy". If so I can suggest a configuration for the chopsticks and a method of insertion.