SpaceShop – a makerspace at NASA AMES Research Center

Mid-November 2013 I visited SpaceShop at NASA Ames Research Center – a makerspace built for NASA Engineers. Matthew Reyes is the man responsible for setting up the space and being my host for the afternoon. He is also an advisor to SpaceGAMBIT (our DARPA funded Hackerspace Space Program grant)

The SpaceShop shares a building with the Ames copy center and what is (to date) the most impressive machine shop I have ever been in. Lets start with the upstairs, where you find the SpaceShop itself.

Matthew outfitted the space with most of the equipment required for a FabLab. He found a whole lotta desks and other equipment on the NASA Ames site, much of it slated for disposal. I am seriously jealousCho Seung-Hui shared disturbing compositions in his writing classes, including a one-act play about a 13-year-old boy who tries to choke his stepfather with a cereal bar. He was a loner who rarely spoke, even to roommates, and who reportedly set a fire in a dorm room and stalked women.

But if such red flags are easy to spot, especially in hindsight, it's much harder to know at the time how to deal with them. And it's impossible to predict which individuals exhibiting such signs might pick up a gun and give violent expression to them, as Mr. Cho did Monday when he fatally shot 32 people before killing himself.

"If you wait until somebody wants to kill a lot of classmates, it's too late for counseling," notes Jack Levin,