Jim Plaxco made first contact with the space activist community in the mid-80's when he became a member of the National Space Institute, the predecessor of the National Space Society. In 1988 he joined and became an active member of the Chicago Space Frontier L5 and Chicago Society for Space Studies chapters of the National Space Society. He subsequently went on to serve as founder and President of the Northern Illinois Space Advocacy. He is currently the Webmaster, a Director, and Public Affairs Vice President of the Chicago Society for Space Studies. Mr. Plaxco also created the CSSS Speakers Bureau.

Mr. Plaxco was elected to the National Space Society (NSS) Board of Directors as the Region 6 Director in 2002 and was subsequently elected to serve as the Vice President of Chapter Affairs for the NSS. His term of office ended in January 2005. Beginning in May 2006, Mr. Plaxco has served as the Chairman for the National Space Society's Space Settlement Art Contest and Space Settlement Calendar Project.

Mr. Plaxco's other previous non-profit experiences include having served on the Board of Advisors for the Harper College Center for Meteorite and Planetary Studies; being the Program Director for the Henize Science Learning Center; serving first as Membership Director and Editor of PSF News and later as Webmaster and Vice President of the Planetary Studies Foundation.

Mr. Plaxco currently serves as a member of the CSSS Speakers Bureau and as a NASA JPL Solar System Ambassador. In these roles he provides educational presentations to schools, museums, and various organizations and special interest groups. A few of the topics that he has spoken on include:

• the exploration of Mars and Mars imaging
• Space Solar Power and Lunar Solar Power
• NASA's Vision for Space Exploraton
• space mission planning
• the Hubble Space Telescope

Mr. Plaxco's newest presentation is "The Universe According to Monty Python". Detailed information about this and his other presentations is available at http://www.astrodigital.org/ambassador/.

In addition to his many lectures, Mr. Plaxco is also the creator and webmaster of Astrodigital - www.astrodigital.org , an educational web site for space and computing related subjects and the Mars Art Gallery - http://www.marsartgallery.com/ , a web site devoted to Mars imaging. You can read about his latest exploits at the Artsnova Blog.

Mr. Plaxco received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Economics and a Master of Science Degree in Computer Science from Northern Illinois University. While at Northern Illinois University, Mr. Plaxco founded and served as President of the NIU College Republicans.

Professionally, Mr. Plaxco is employed as a Database Administrative Specialist. He lives in Schaumburg IL with his wife and two sons.

Mr. Plaxco may be reached via email at