So here’s the challenge, design a glove that will resist the cold and vacuum of space and the ever-present threat of micrometeoroid penetration yet remain pliable and flexible enough to allow an astronaut to perform a dextrous task. The glove must be complete, including the outer thermal layer and inner pressure-retaining layer.

And you have to get it done on your own dime.

That’s exactly what Mainer Peter Homer did this year from his Mt. Desert Island home to win the Astronaut Glove Challenge and $250,000. More remarkably, it was his second win for this particular challenge, posed by NASA as part of its Centennial Challenge program. Think of it as an X Prize of sorts for the little guy. Few individuals will be equipped to build their own space-going aircraft or 100-mpg car, but many individuals have entered NASA various engineering headscratchers that include the Lunar Lander Challenge, which asks participants to build and fly a rocket-powered vehicle that simulates the flight of a vehicle on the Moon, and the Regolith Excavation Challenge, in which successful teams design and build robotic machines to excavate simulated lunar soil.

Also like the X Prize Foundation, the Centennial Challenges are run by independent non-profit foundations, and winners retain the intellectual property of their inventions in addition to receiving the prize money. It’s clearly a win-win proposition for the space agency, which can watch the innovation from afar. In exchange for offering cash prizes to the public to help them solve difficult engineering problems, NASA is able to potentially license the best ones and also get to see, for free, what is often the most difficult part of the development process: the prototype.

As part of the Lunar Lander Challenge, for example, NASA engineers saw 23 different working prototypes, a number that would be extremely difficult and expensive to recreate through the agency.

“Seeing all of these different possibilities in a simulated lunar environment is extremely valuable. We will be looking at the work being done in these kinds of solutions, and also the business models. These people often find more creative ways to do things,” says Petro, who looks at the funding aspect as all part of the innovation process. Teams must find their own sponsors or resources.

But it can be very worthwhile—prize money, funded by tax money, can range up to $2 million. And that’s cheap for what NASA gets. Though Petro says it’s still early in the game for licensing deals (the challenges have been held since 2005), he anticipates direct benefits down the road. Already, challenge winners have made the news, such as LaserMotive LLC, which won nearly $1 million in the Power Beaming Challenge for cleverly beaming power to a robot that was asked to climb a 4,000-foot high “space elevator” suspended by a helicopter.

Some challenges, though, may take years to find a winner. The new Green Flight Challenge is looking for a flier that can cover 200 miles in no more than two hours using the energy equivalent of 1 gallon of gasoline.

If that sounds challenging, Petro confirms, yes, it is: “Very.”