The premise of using a shuttle like this seems like a reinvention of fractional orbital bombardment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_Orbital_Bombardmen

The premise of using a shuttle like this seems like a reinvention of fractional orbital bombardment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_Orbital_Bombardment_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_Orbital_Bombardment... Not the cheapest way to do it by any means, but I suppose masquerading as a harmless civilian space plane gives you some degree of plausible deniability, since it would be violating a few treaties to have such a system.