Horton's interest in nuclear fusion grew during his graduate studies at the University of California at San Diego. Horton was inspired by the enormous potential of controlled fusion reactions to generate cheap, clean, and sustainable Energy on an unprecedented and inexhaustible scale i.e., human generated ‘Star Power’. Horton earned his PhD at UCSD under Marshall Rosenbluth, a scientist who had worked on the Manhattan Project and a close protégé of Edward Teller. Horton has published or edited thirteen books on the theoretical basis for plasma containment and transport, and co-authored over 200 papers. A frequently cited book is “Chaos and Structures in Nonlinear Plasmas” .