I have reached the pinnacle of my career: I’ve been cited in a talk about the origins of the universe. What could be more important?

An old friend who I met in Paris back in 1994 while on my Watson Fellowship, Hugh Hill, is an associate professor of Space Science at the International Space University. Yesterday I got an email from him: “I thought that you might be amused (bemused ?) to see Slide # 9 of the attached lecture, which I delivered to our M.Sc. students in September. As a die-hard academic, you are duly acknowledged.” Slide 9 of the talk “Origin of the Solar System” is entitled “Bring Back Pluto? (The Silly Season)” and looks like this:

Here’s the portion of the slide that brings me into space immortality:

Hah!

As an aside, here is a mapping of International Space University alumni–an incredible achievement considering that it was founded in 1987: