  The ouflowing proper motions of fifteen knots in the dominant northwestern
lobe of the high-excitation poly-polar planetary nebula NGC 6302 have been
determined by comparing their positions relative to those of faint stars in an
image taken at the San Pedro Martir Observatory in 2007 to those in a South
African Astronomical Observatory archival plate obtained by Evans in 1956. The
Hubble-type expansion of this lobe is now directly confirmed in a model
independent way from these measurements. Furthermore, an unambiguous distance
to NGC 6302 of 1.17 +/- 0.14 kpc is now determined. Also all the velocity
vectors of the fifteen knots (and two others) point back to the central source.
An eruptive event from within the central torus, approximately 2200 years
previously must have created the high speed lobes of NGC 6302.
