Richard Dinan

Richard Assheton Dermot Dinan was born in 1986 in England to Lady Charlotte Curzon and Captain John “Barry” Dinan. He attended St Edward’s School, Oxford, completing his GCSEs at age 16. Dinan trained briefly as a gunsmith with Holland & Holland before founding Ammunition, a youth-culture magazine. In March 2012, Dinan gained public attention as a cast member of the E4 reality series “Made in Chelsea” from series 3 to 5 (2012–2013), with a brief return in series 10 (2015). During his time on the show, he developed a high-tech wearable called the “Senturion.”

Dinan founded Applied Fusion Systems, later renamed Pulsar Fusion, with the goal of developing compact fusion reactors for energy and spacecraft propulsion. In 2017, Pulsar Fusion began work on a Spherical tokamak reactor, inspired by research at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy. That same year, Dinan authored “The Fusion Age: Modern Nuclear Fusion Reactors,” a popular science book on nuclear fusion. He was also a patron at a Christie’s art auction benefiting the Prince’s Foundation “Children & the Arts,” which supports arts-engagement programs for disadvantaged youth.

As CEO of Pulsar Fusion, Dinan has overseen significant advancements. In 2021, Pulsar Fusion successfully developed and tested nitrous oxide and polyethylene-based rocket engines at a Ministry of Defence site in Salisbury. In 2023, the company introduced Sunbird, a fusion-powered rocket concept. Notably, in January 2024, Pulsar claimed it was actively working on building a nuclear fusion-propelled rocket aimed at significantly reducing space travel times, such as to Mars. The company has also demonstrated two prototype rocket engine designs and tested its first Hall effect satellite thruster, achieving an exhaust velocity of 20 km/s.