Using the super-sharp "radio vision" of astronomy's most precise telescope, scientists have extended a directly-measured "yardstick" three times farther into the cosmos than ever before. The continent-wide Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) provides the greatest resolving power of any telescope in the world. The VLBA uses ten 25-meter-diameter dish antennas distributed from Hawaii to St. Croix in the Caribbean. Together they can produce images that are equivalent to sitting in New York and reading a newspaper in Los Angeles. This power allows astronomers to make precise cosmic measurements with far-ranging implications for research within our own Galaxy and far beyond. Recent direct measurements with the VLBA have placed a galaxy called NGC 6264 at a distance of 450 million light-years from Earth. This is the farthest distance ever directly measured from Earth.