There’s nothing much I hate worse than being late to a story (can you possibly imagine why?), but I didn’t get the chance to write about Phillippe Starck’s deal for the Virgin Galactic spaceport in New Mexico until late last night. Anyhow, unfortunately the buzz on this one is making it difficult to tell what’s really going down, but stories from various news sources cite the site as costing between $20 and $220 million, and that Virgin Galactic is slated to begin construction of the spaceport in early 2007, with flights departing off Starck’s runway by 2009. But the 38,000 some-odd people who’ve signed up to take the $200,000 ride into space don’t interest me nearly as much as the completely trite and admissibly delectable combination of modern design and space travel, together again. Kubrick would have been proud, Mr. Branson — despite the fact that you’ve probably pissed off a lot of Scanadanavians with this. Here’s to hoping it turns out more Saarinen / Terminal 5-like, and less like, um, what’s pictured right by Starck (which, I concede, is still better than anything Gehry).