[3] In the 1980s, Schaffer developed a satellite tracking system that made it possible for United States intelligence agencies to monitor the internal television of the then-Soviet Union.
With software engineer Willie Nelson, he developed an Apple II-based automatic tracking system based on a red 3 meter (10') dish on the roof of Columbia University's International Affair Institute in Manhattan, allowing Soviet Studies graduate students to watch live Russian television.
Schaffer then conceived and executed a project through which the fledgling Discovery Channel devoted a week to carrying Russian TV, for which he shared the National Cable Television Association's Golden Ace award.
[8] In the late 1960s and 1970s, Schaffer was publicist for Jimi Hendrix, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, Todd Rundgren, Alice Cooper and for the Comet Kohoutek (on behalf of the American Museum of Natural History's Hayden Planetarium), among others, and in the 1980s Boris Grebenshchikov.
[13] The project was documented by director Michael Apted in "The Long Way Home", who filmed Schaffer and Grebenshchikov in St. Petersburg, Moscow, London, New York and Los Angeles.