I like how SpaceX is willing to take risks. Their second launch tower is still months away from being finished, and now they're trying to catch the booster using the first one.
FAA doesn't care if they blow up the tower, as long as SpaceX can explain why it happened and show that it didn't cause undue risk to the public.
People freaked out and said the same thing after IFT-1 dug up the concrete underneath the launch mount, and yet the investigation was closed within 6 months and SpaceX conducted IFT-2 2 months later.
IFT-1 presented no danger to the public at all and it still took 6 months. That’s a long time to an actual technology company attempting to innovate. The FAA slow walks SpaceX because of Musk’s political views, it’s not even an “open secret” just a fact of life. Their only recourse is to shine a light on the FFA so the public can see the politics in display.
The time for the mishap report of IFT-1 was reasonable enough, they had a pretty serious issue in that the booster's FTS turned out to be insufficient. It also took them until the end of July to repair the pad and test the new deluge system. By mid-August they submitted their incident report to the FAA. The investigation was closed in early September. This was something even Elon admitted, saying that retesting the FTS would probably be the limiting factor for when IFT-2 could fly because it didn't destroy the vehicle as it was supposed to.
The unreasonable delay you might be thinking of, was between the FAA's closing of the investigation in early September, to the IFT-2 launch in November. That was under pretty similar circumstances to now, Fish and Wildlife Services was taking forever to do its part of the job, SpaceX went to Congress, the resulting pressure forced them to get things done faster.
