Nine Billion

Thirty-five years ago, August and September 1977 to be exact, NASA launched the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecrafts on interplanetary missions to explore the outer planets of Jupiter and Saturn. Today, the two fully-functioning spacecrafts are approximately nine billion miles from the earth and have left the outer reaches of the solar system. Not only did they complete their primary mission, but they also visited Neptune and Uranus, and today both craft are reporting to NASA extraordinary data from deep space. I decided to report on this not only because I am an astronomy buff and watch the Discovery Channel, but because I marvel that 1970’s technology is still transmitting data from 75 billion miles away. Just think about what we could accomplish today. Instead, our bureaucrats have cut any funding for space exploration, and US astronauts will be hitching rides on Russian spacecraft. The real estate lesson here is that if Washington cannot see its way clear to invest in the space program, what is it going to do to fix our crumbling infrastructure? Right — nothing.

Tony LoPinto is the Global Sector Leader of Korn/Ferry International's Real Estate Practice and founder of SelectLeaders. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

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