I'm bored and the servers are down so I figured I'd post a how-to for space combat. It's fairly simple point and click but I figured I'd give the raw stats and such for anyone interested.

Part 1: The Ship

First off, you'll need to get a ship. you get your individual class ship around 15 (when you leave Coruscant) and you'll be able to gear it up about as soon as you get it. Gearing your ship is a bit different than gearing your character would be, starting with how you get it. The two primary ways to get ship parts is to buy it from starship vendors or to have/know someone who has cybertech (You can also get very specific parts from commendations and from space quests themselves but you only need to get them once). Like gear there are tiers of ship parts, steadily increasing the power your ship has, along with requiring higher and higher levels. Ship Part rarity is directly tied to it's grade (All Grade 2 Parts are blue, Grade 3 is all green, etc.) The only epic ship parts come from 400 cyber tech or from a single space quest one time. The epic parts are not exactly required at this point, but can make the higher tier missions a lot easier in the long run. The commendation parts are not exactly required either, but they are useful as well (the Power Converter is particularly useful early)
It can be expensive to upgrade ALL of your parts at once, luckily the individual parts of a particular ship grade can be bought at different level tiers well ahead of when you need them, so it's easier just to buy the parts as you unlock them.

Part 2: The Mission

Now that you have your ship ready to go it's time you got into the action! Space combat is pretty simple point and click twitch play, but there are a good set of tools and tactics you can use to get the most out of your daily missions, First off is the Barrel Roll. DO A BARREL ROLL. In fact do as many Barrel Rolls as you can! It helps avoid blaster fire a lot and can really let you stay on the attack as long as possible. Using the aswd keys also will move your ship seperate from your cursor and helps you further avoid blaser fire/asteroids/things that should generally be avoided. Shields are another thing to keep in mind once you get them. Shields do not regenerate as you fire, so you need to effectively switch between firing and conserving your shields to be successful (missiles can still be used while regenerating shields so use them if you need some offense while your shields are down). Missiles are the last major thing to worry about. Missiles are very strong attacks that can one-shot fighters after a lock on (two-shots at higher levels). They are also very limited, so it's better to conserve them when you can. The reason to conserve is because specific bonus objectives will be immune to blaster fire and require missile fire to defeat (basically if you see a shield go crazy after shooting at something fire missiles). There are a ton of bonus objectives that can only be gotten missiles, so if you have the firepower elsewhere saving them for the right situation is best. Another thing to learn about missiles is multi-lock. Holding the missile fire button down (right click) let's you lock onto multiple targets before firing (up to 4). It's best used for large groups of fighters or whole turret rows as it takes them out much faster than blaster spam or picking them out one by one. You will also get a few gadgets to use with commendations. They are assigner to buttons 1-4 and give you various effects, from destroying everything on screen (including friendlies!) to making you untargetable for 10 seconds.

Part 3: Rewards

The final and probably most important part you should know about space combat is the rewards. First off is Space Commendations. You'll get these as a part of every space mission and are used as currency from a particular vendor in the Fleet / on Correlia. The rewards are various, from ship parts to social gear to gear boxes,all with varying costs. The following items can be bought with said commendations:

Level 50 Item Lockboxes:

Artifact (375 Commendations)
Prototype (100)
Premium (20)

Social Gear (Pilot Suits)

Tier 1/2 (Civilian Pilot / Red Pilot)

Head (70)
Chest (80)
Hands (60)
Belt (60: Civilian Only)
Legs (70)
Feet (70)

Tier 3 (Republic Pilot: THE ORANGE JUMPSUIT!)
Head (225)
Chest (250)
Hands (200)
Belt (200)
Legs (225)
Feet (200)

Ship Parts:

Power Converter (30)
Electronic Warfare Pod (90)
EMP Pulse (150)
Proton Torpedoes (50)

The Artifact Box may seem like the most logical choice to get, but there are a few things to consider: It is a random roll on ANY type of gear, and it often is inferior to gear/ mods you'll find elsewhere through Ilum/ Belsavis Dailies / PvE / PvP. It also costs a bunch of commendations to obtain. Completing all the available space missions (from the starting missions on up) grants around 100 commendations a day (not counting how many times you want to run individual missions in a row. Acquiring the Full Republic Pilot set doing all the available dailies consecutively require about 2 weeks of grinding. Luckily doing ALL the space dailies only takes about an hour beginning to end (unfortunately you cant exactly speed up the process since all space missions are on fixed timers). The Level 50 Space Mission 'Impossible Sector' will also grant you 2 Daily Commendations a day, which can be used to buy Rakata level implants and ears, mounts, as well as rating 126 base mods. The other rewards from Space Missions are money and XP. You will get a ton of leveling XP from space dailies. It is a good idea to space missions as early as you get them to maximize their effect. The best part is regardless of the level difficulty, you can still complete it easily as you will be able to upgrade your parts long before they are actually required. Even once you get to 50 it gives a significant amount of Legacy XP as well (regardless of level you will still get legacy xp from destroying objectives). Space missions also give a fair amount of money with little risk on your part (no repair bills yay!). Doing all the dailies can net you ~100-125k credits depending on how you complete the bonus objectives a day. It is probably one of the easiest ways to get cash pre-50 and can really help you get to speeder training as fast as possible.

Well that's everything. Now go off and live out those epic space battle fantasies Star Wars is all about!

** (Edited to show all Commendation costs)

Also if you are really enjoying the space missions, this is one of the few ways to obtain a an orange belt since the republic pilot gear is fully modifiable (light armour).

I suggest you explain the converter since I would never be able to complete higher space missions without it.

Converter: When starting a missions always begin by pressing 1 to activate the power mode. It increases your damage (but reduces shield regen). Every time you have a pause in enemies press 2 to go into shield mode and stop firing to regen the shields. Press 1 again once enemies are back.
If your shield is down/very low press 2 to activate shield as well and start moving around + spamming spacebar like crazy until the shields are back to full.

To add to the topic, and so everypony can have it, I humbly submit the Complete Guide to Space Dailies, as written on the SWtOR fourms, by our very own Dactar'ooves (not me).