Note: This was placed as a private agreement between the artist and the astronauts and then later tried to claim that the agreement was different than what the astronauts claimed and he tried to later profit off of it and sell 950 copies of the statue.

From wikipedia:

> The crew kept the memorial's existence a secret until after completion of their mission. After public disclosure, the National Air and Space Museum requested a replica of the statue. Controversy soon followed, as Van Hoeydonck claimed a different understanding of the agreement made with the astronauts and attempted to sell up to 950 copies of the statue. He finally relented under pressure from NASA, which had a strict policy against commercial exploitation of the US government space program.

The real reason for the rods from god idea was because it would bypass the outer space treaty about no nuclear weapons in orbit while still providing significant damaging energy potential. That's why it was brainstormed in the first place. Meanwhile it would be hard to detect it incoming and there would be less warning than an incoming missile.

If all it takes is a "megalomaniac man child" to create a launch company that puts world governments to shame... Then lets have a lot more of them please! (This is a joke, OP's comment is ridiculous on the face of it.)