The University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Law is preparing to boldly go where no U.S. college has gone before.
The college is scheduled to receive $2 million in a senate commerce, justice and science appropriations bill to support a degree program in space and telecommunications law.
The bill, which still needs approval by the House of Representatives, would help to establish the first space law program in the United States.
As it stands now, domestic agencies in need of space law experts are sending people to McGill University, a school in Canada, which established its Institute of Air and Space Law in 1951.
UNL is situated in close proximity to Offutt Air Force Base and has a strong relationship with StratCom.
StratCom is a division of the Department of Defense stationed at Offutt Air Force Base. Its purpose with providing the United States with global deterrence capabilities and combatting adversary weapons of mass destruction worldwide.
There is no official affiliation between StratCom and the university, but Steve Willborn, dean of the College of Law, said StratCom had a "strong interest in the program."
A closer relationship between the military and the university could mean an increase in the allocation of military budget of research and development, Willborn said.
The college of law will begin classes in the space program in fall 2008.
Matthew Schaefer, a UNL law professor, will teach the military aspect of space law.
Marvin Ammori, a new faculty member who currently teaches at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., will teach the commercial and telecommunications aspect.
Ammori will begin teaching part-time at UNL during the 2007 school year.
Ammori said space law developed out of the Outer Space Treaty signed by the U.S., Great Britain and the Soviet Union in 1967.
The recent expansion of the field resulted from the increased use of telecommunication satellites, he said.
"This really contains every way people communicate - Internet, televisions and phones," Ammori said. "It's a very wide field."
The introduction of the year-long program will make UNL the fourth university in the world to offer this type of degree.
"There is a great opportunity for graduates to have careers in national security, military, telecommunications and even agriculture," Willborn said.
