Some of his shapes have a mechanical or architectural air; others suggest Star Trek spaceship designs on steroids, or robotic-vegetal growths from a futuristic Amazon.
One problem is that shielding materials are so dense and heavy that any spaceship designed to protect its crew from radiation would struggle to get off the ground.
The company, founded by Sir Richard Branson, will fly a spaceship designed by Burt Rutan and based on SpaceShipOne, which won the Ansari X Prize in 2004.
But his feelings suddenly change when he discovers that the ring his father left him contains a genetically encoded map to guide him to the Titan, a spaceship designed to save humanity and concealed somewhere in the universe.
There is a rebel princess called Leia Organa Carrie Fisherr), with apple cheeks and Tyrolean plaits around her ears, who possesses the secret plans of a sinister moon-shaped spaceship designed to destroy hostile planets by sending out beams of colossal energy that create lethal Fourth of July fireworks.
This year at the playa 61,000 participants gathered to watch the ritual torching of The Man, perched atop a spaceship designed by Lewis Zaumeyer.
Poirier was intrigued by its other characters as well, and was impressed by the "sharp but fluid" animation style and the spaceship designs.
The Obama administration is waiting for a recommendation from an outside panel, which will examine a return-to-the-moon policy that started under President George W. Bush and compare that to other goals and different spaceship designs.
Jodorowsky had extraordinary collaborators: visuals by Moebius and HR Giger, spaceships designed by the English illustrator Chris Foss.
The company is also said to be discussing a third, more powerful generation of spaceships, designed to make longer sub-orbital journeys rather than just poking their noses into space in the way that White Knight Two will.Mr Whitehorn and Mr Rutan have made no secret of their desire to see later generations of carrier aircraft and rocketry that can put people into orbit.
