While we may not be as much of a rock-star center as Kennedy or Johnson, Dryden Flight Research Center has its moments! Take last week’s 2009 Space Elevator Games, for example.

For those of you who are not familiar with the project, teams competing in the Space Elevator Games were tasked with creating a robot that would climb a 1 km tether (suspended from a helicopter) at a minimum speed of 2 m/s. The climber is limited to a 50 kg net weight and must carry as much payload as possible. Winners are determined by a formula based on the climber’s speed, payload, and net weight.

A total of $2 million was up for grabs (NASA provided). The team LaserMotive took home $900K. See the full results at http://www.spaceelevatorgames.org/.