Daily Mississippian

Issue date: 4/5/07 Section: News

In Lamar Hall office door No. 571 is adorned with 11 cartoon quips about space budgets, missile defense systems, slingshots and a human being's place in the universe.

Law school professor Joanne Irene Gabrynowicz, 57, uses the office. The director of the National Center for Remote Sensing, Air and Space Law, Gabrynowicz crossed the Atlantic a month ago, coming back from Vienna, where she had been an "official observer" of the United Nations' 46th legal subcommittee meeting of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS).

"Of course, I am not there representing a country, but I have permission to sit in on the proceedings as an official observer," she said before the 12-hour plane ride.

The center, established in 1999, is located beside the National Center for Justice and the Rule of Law. The latter has a staff of nine, while the former is comprised of two faculty members - Gabrynowicz and associate director Jacqueline Serrao - and assistant director Michelle Aten. They met at the University of North Dakota when Gabrynowicz and Serrao were professors, and Aten was a graduate student.

An emerging field
"When I was in law school, hardly anyone was teaching space law," Gabrynowicz said. In 1980 she graduated in the second class from the Yeshiva University Cardozo School of Law in Manhattan.

Ron Rychlak, associate dean for academic affairs of the University of Mississippi School of Law, says a former professor is part of why space law came to Ole Miss and the United States. Stephen Gorove "might legitimately be considered the godfather of space law in the United States," Rychlak said.

Gorove began teaching space law classes when he arrived at Ole Miss in 1965. A few days after his passing in 2001, Rychlak said, "I was talking to a colleague on the other side of the world when we were trying to establish a NASA-funded National Remote Sensing and Space Law Center of Excellence. He told me that Ole Miss would be a logical choice because of Gorove."

"(The Center) has brought us national and international attention and attracted highly motivated students," Rychlak added.

Local celebrities in the space research community
Gabrynowicz's shoulder-length hair is in that middle-age sashay from blond to silver, she constantly apologizes for "the mess" in her office and she moves fast. This last note could be on account of a New York City upbringing. Or maybe it's because she is the director of the Center, which, as she explains, "is the only space law center in the county that serves national interest."

Though house money bets Gabrynowicz - the 2001 recipient of the Woman in Aerospace Outstanding International Award and a member of the board of directors of the National Institute of International Space Law - simply has an untrimmed love for her work.

The gig in Vienna was her fifth straight COPUOS legal subcommittee meeting, but with China's recent anti-satellite "test," it could have been one of the most interesting. At least seven different countries publicly condemned the "test," in which China on Jan. 11 destroyed one of its own weather satellites with a ballistic missile.

Gabrynowicz was straightforward and reasoned - though not to say hesitant in her response.

"People asked me about the legal implication of that activity," she said. "It was a very irresponsible thing to do. But at the same time (the United States) has to be careful not to respond hastily. This is something that needs a very thoughtful, deliberate, diplomatic response. This is a serious, serious issue."

Some of the biggest implications, as she saw them, were the debris released into space and the national security issues for the United States and the world.

Monarchs dating back centuries have laid claim to celestial bodies. But when the Cold War's Space Race began, member states of the United Nations decided, in October 1967, to "enter into force" the first of five treaties.

"(The U.N.) was trying to prevent the nuclear arms race from reaching out into outer space," Gabrynowicz noted.

Only the former U.S.S.R., Russia, the United States and China have sent human beings into outer space. But 44 nations have established governmental "space agencies," and China, along with Japan, recently vowed to orbit the moon this year.

The easiest way to illustrate the growing interest in space travel, however, is to look at the recent goings-on of the center. Most of the Center's literature contains the phrase "the growing need of," and on its Web page is the reader: "Information contained in downloadable presentations is accurate as of the date of the presentation."

It just published "The Land Remote Sensing Laws and Policies of National Governments: A Global Survey."

On March 5 and 6, the Center hosted guest lecturer Tare Brisibe, who, as Gabrynowicz said, is "the attorney for Nigeria's equivalent of NASA." Nigeria's National Space Research and Development Agency was established the same year as its government's democracy, in 1998.

On April 17 the center will have as a guest lecturer Tim Hughes. Hughes is the attorney for Spacex, a private space-transportation firm that sent the Falcon launcher into low earth orbit for $6 million.

And Gabrynowicz took a phone call two weeks ago in regards to the legalities of Google Earth.

"We're dependent on space, either through weather satellites that give us those images we watch on the evening news, or by using the GPS in our cars, or when using cell phones. We've worked on cases here before dealing with the use of satellite images as courtroom evidence. All of these things come through or from satellites that are in space," she said of the technology.

Focusing on the future
While she was in Vienna, Gabrynowicz's office door was locked. Hanging on the wall behind it was a picture of Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon's surface, signed to Gabrynowicz by Aldrin; a snapshot of Gabrynowicz and Gale Norton after she briefed Norton, the former secretary of the interior, on satellite law and policy; and - somehow looking right at home - a black-and-white portrait of Abraham Lincoln.

"As an undergrad, I was a history major at Hunter College with an emphasis on United States history and the Constitution," she said, explaining Lincoln's company.

Then, when asked how she found this present line of work, she said something inspired, quirky and unexpected.

"You see, because of the changing shape of the world at that time, the Founding Fathers were forced to think of things continentally - that's why they called it the Continental Congress. So when they were founding this country, coming up with one government, they had to think in terms of one continent.

"And now, with outer space being explored by humans, our world is changing again. So now, we're having to think in terms of one world, rather than one continent."

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