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What are some of the most expensive flight itineraries out there right now on planet Earth? As an experiment, I plugged in San Francisco as my departure city and Dubai as my destination (I picked Dubai at random), and did a search for first-class flight tickets over the Christmas holiday. Most flights I pulled up were in the $6,000 range, although one flight actually went for a whopping $19,517! At least it was direct!

Richard Branson is betting you’d pay $200,000 for a direct trip to outer space (which is quite a stretch from Dubai), and so far, he’s found 300 takers, even though the flights won’t even begin until 2011 at the very earliest, will only last for 2 ½ hours each (with less than five minutes of zero gravity), and will require a few days of training beforehand.

Still, for many, the siren call of the stratosphere and beyond is too tempting to resist, no matter what the price, and Branson’s Virgin Galactic is giving potential space tourists something tangible to latch onto. Yesterday, he and partner Burt Rutan unveiled the commercial vessel, SpaceShipTwo, which promises to reach heights of 65 miles above the Earth, allowing views of the Earth’s curvature previously experienced only by trained astronauts.

No doubt, it’s got to be completely awe-inspiring and a once-in-a-lifetime chance to experience the final frontier.

So, if a first-class trip to Dubai can cost almost $20,000, at what price should space be worth? Would you be willing to pony up the $200,000 to take the trip?