The Throttle Lever

Actually, this 'throttle' lever does not indeed operate anything like a throttle, nor does it directly affect the output of any of your ship's thrusters. It's more of a speed selector, a means of telling your ship's flight control system how fast you'd like to go. However, it looks like a throttle lever, and it does make your ship go faster or slower, so let's call it a throttle lever anyway.

To go faster, push the lever forward. To slow down, pull it back. To stop, pull it back further. To reverse, pull it back as far as it go.

With the throttle you can reach a speed of 32 metres per second. Spaceships have no speed limit of course (well, not in a Euclidean space-time continuum bound by Newtonian physical principles, at least), but it's difficult to make a lever that covers a wide range of speeds without it needing a very long arm or a rock-steady hand. The docking keys (see REFERENCE FRAME and THRUSTER CONTROLS) allow you to accelerate to any speed.

Pressing the button at the end of the handle will enagage the autopilot. Use this to quickly reach targets that are several kilometres away.