I am not going to question as to a player's motivations as to why they may enjoy space travel. That's just fine. People have different tastes. People also TS me from time to time, so I try not to inquire as to what another person's taste du jour might be.
That said, based on what's been said, the motivations for Space Travel seem to be:
- Realism
- Intra-ship RP
- Potential Encounters in Transit
Putting aside the first motivation, which is a matter of taste, it seems to me that space travel could be easily handled via Temp Rooms. Have a code-bit that creates a "transit room" for players to enter that represents their ship in travel when a trip is initiated, and essentially locks it down for a period of time equal to the "real time" travel time. Have a set of "destinations" in the code that then ejects the occupant PC Objections at each such "destinations" after the travel time has ended.