[wildzzz]

It's overkill for normal office use but the space shuttle is going to have some massive vibration and mechanical shock during launch. All systems have to be ruggedized to withstand the environment. A commercial unit might not survive the trip up and building some sort of vibration damping system for it might take up more space. If the manufacturer can't guarantee the uptime for the commercial unit, they might need a spare aboard as well also in its own special dampener case. Sometimes it just makes sense to do a custom design that meets your needs instead of trying to make a square peg fit a round hole. Also the related systems have to be considered. The Shuttle had a power bus of 28VDC, were there any commercial printers that took 28VDC and had proper EMI filtering? Were commercial printers compatible with the types of data signals expected on the Shuttle? You may need to build some sort of adapter to make a commercial printer work with the data and power systems. You may end up with something just as heavy and bulky and still not as reliable.

[dylan604]

> It's overkill for normal office use but the space shuttle is going to have some massive vibration and mechanical shock during launch.

Maybe you haven't seen how some delivery drivers treat the packages in their care. I swear I've received boxes that look like the were shaken, not stirred, to the level of a rocket launch.

[kayodelycaon]

Printers aren’t usually shipped in operable condition.

[dylan604]

You're suggesting that a printer being launched into space on a rocket would also not be secured in a similar fashion? What's your point otherwise?