The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has wrapped up a series of public hearings on SpaceX’s proposal to launch its Super Heavy Starship rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC). 

The sessions, held both in-person and online, form part of the draft environmental impact statement (EIS) review that will determine whether SpaceX would be cleared to conduct Starship launches and landings from Florida’s Space Coast.

FAA review and Starship launch plans

According to the FAA’s draft EIS, SpaceX seeks permission to fly its fully reusable Starship system from Launch Complex 39A, where construction of a dedicated tower and infrastructure has already begun. Proposed operations could involve landings at KSC or droneships positioned across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. The FAA emphasized that final approval is not guaranteed with the completion of the EIS, as safety and financial requirements must still be met, as noted in a Space.com report.

Starship’s larger scale compared to Falcon 9 means expanded exclusion zones for air, sea, and beach access. The analysis also projected more than 60 annual closures of Playalinda Beach, alongside potential flight delays across Florida airports lasting 40 minutes to two hours. Port Canaveral would also be affected by maritime restrictions.

Local concerns

Public comments reflected a mix of optimism and unease. Aviation officials, such as Tampa International Airport COO John Tiliacos, warned of significant disruption to commercial flights. “There is the potential that there’s going to be significant impact to commercial aviation and the traveling public. That’s something that certainly the FAA needs to give consideration to and, frankly, come up with a plan to mitigate,” he stated. 

Others raised health concerns, noting that chronic sleep disruption from launch noise could impact veterans and trauma survivors. Robyn Memphis, a neuroscience and psychology graduate student, stated that sleep disruptions from launch noise and sonic booms could carry lasting effects. “Chronic sleep disruption is not just inconvenient. This is directly linked to depression, anxiety… cardiovascular disease, even suicide risk. And being in Florida, we have many veterans and trauma survivors in the community,” she said.

Nudist protests and responses

Erich Schuttauf, the executive director of the American Association for Nude Recreation, also argued that places like Playalinda Beach, a nudist beach, are crucial for people who travel to places where public nudity is legal. His sentiments were echoed by fellow nudist Sue Stevens, who noted that “It’s probably a quarter million people that travel and think like I do, who look for destinations that are beautiful and surrounded by like-minded people.”

Photographer Max West, who plans to move to Florida to photograph Starship, noted that the spacecraft presents a notable step forward for humanity. And while its impact to communities is not marginal, the progress it offers is well worth it. “I’m not going to say that there is zero environmental impact there,” he said, though he also stated that there has to be some “little sacrifices along the way. “The turtles and the nudists will have to migrate. That’s the cost that you have to pay for this incredible stuff that’s happening.”

Elon Musk is setting high expectations for Tesla’s in-house silicon program. As per Musk in a set of recent posts on X, Tesla’s AI5 and AI6 will be game-changing. 

Tesla’s AI5 and AI6 are incredibly important for Tesla’s future, which will likely be built on the back of very high-volume products like Optimus and the Cybercab.

Musk sets high expectations

Musk confirmed this week that Tesla had just completed a design review for AI5, which will initially be manufactured by TSMC in Taiwan before production ramps in Arizona. As per Musk, consolidating Tesla’s chip design efforts into one architecture has allowed the company to focus its silicon talent on delivering a single high-performance platform. 

“Just had a great design review today with the Tesla AI5 chip design team! This is going to be an epic chip. And AI6 to follow has a shot at being the best (by) AI chip by far. Switching from doing 2 chip architectures to 1 means all our silicon talent is focused on making 1 incredible chip. No-brainer in retrospect,” Musk wrote in his post.

In a follow-up post, the CEO also stated that the company’s upcoming AI5 chip “will probably be the best inference chip of any kind” for models below ~250 billion parameters, with the “lowest cost silicon and best performance per watt.” Musk added that AI6, which follows AI5, “has a shot at being the best AI chip by far.”

AI6 as Dojo’s successor

While AI5 is nearing production, Musk has also pointed to AI6 as Tesla’s next major target. The chip will be manufactured at Samsung’s upcoming Texas facility, part of a multibillion-dollar deal to support Tesla’s next-generation products such as the Cybercab and the Optimus humanoid robot. Musk also noted that AI6 could effectively replace Project Dojo as Tesla’s training platform, given its potential for both inference and training workloads.

Industry veterans have echoed this view, with former Apple and Rivian engineer Phil Beisel suggesting that “AI6 is now Dojo.” Musk appeared to agree, responding with a “bullseye” emoji. Musk has also noted on X that he would personally be walking the line in Samsung’s upcoming AI6 factory in Texas, to make sure that the facility’s output is accelerated according to Tesla’s requirements. 

Elon Musk has suggested that Neuralink could attempt to restore limited sight to visually impaired patients as early as 2026. 

The executive posted the update on social media platform X amid news of Neuralink’s first successful Telepathy implants outside the United States. 

Blindsight trials

In a response to a post from Neuralink’s official X account about its first Canadian patients, Musk wrote that the company is “Aiming to restore (limited) sight to the completely blind next year.” The update was well-received on social media, as the device would most likely provide notable quality of life improvements to patients. Neuralink’s current implant, Telepathy, is already changing lives today, and the same will likely be true for Blindsight.

This was not the first time that Musk has provided an update to Neuralink’s Blindsight trials. Earlier this year, Musk told the Qatar Economic Forum that the first human implantation of Blindsight could occur early 2026, potentially in the United Arab Emirates. Neuralink has explored collaboration with the Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi to perform the initial surgery. Blindsight has also received a “breakthrough device” designation from the US FDA, hinting at the implant’s development.

Blindsight’s potential

Musk has previously described Blindsight as Neuralink’s brain-computer interface (BCI) designed to restore vision. During Neuralink’s 2022 Show & Tell event, Musk stated that Blindsight would target the brain’s visual cortex, bypassing damaged eyes entirely to generate visual perception. This means that vision could be restored even for people who were born blind. 

“The first two applications we’re going to aim for in humans are restoring vision, and I think this is notable in that even if someone has never had vision ever, like they were born blind, we believe we can still restore vision. The visual part of the cortex is still there. Even if they’ve never seen before, we’re confident they could see,” Musk said.