I think you severely misunderestimate the difficulty of “scaling up” a cubesat-sized pellet dispenser to a battlestation dropping tungsten telephone poles.
“Rods from God”/Project Thor has always been possible, ever since we first built orbital launchers. It could just as easily have been built when the concept was first suggested. The idea that the existence of a little gumball-dispenser cubesat is somehow going to make it easier for “terrorists and nutjobs” to build (and launch!) a God-rod dispenser is simply absurd.
So that’s “all it would take”? Just “change the material it spits out” from tiny pyrotechnic pellets to telephone-pole-sized logs of tungsten with sophisticated precision terminal-guidance packages?
Not really. This way you can pretend you are a man of the people for your largesse
There is probably a tax write-off there somewhere even
Edit: Jesus Christ could you imagine what you could do if you were trying to get uncontacted tribes off their land and you ordered a display over western Brazil?
