Because without friction, your ship would drift forever.
Now, that sounds good to you at first, but what about when your ship is going full speed and you accidentally hit R and instead of putting you in your cockpit it drops you into space? Kiss your ship goodbye, it was going the speed limit and will now never stop, and you can't build a ship fast enough to catch it.
Actually, you can catch it. Overdrive defensive effect or Offensive stop effect. Or jump to the sector in front of it's path and prepare to catch it there.
Besides, any ships that drift far enough will eventually stop once they reach an unloaded sector.
You can't be ejected from your ship anyway because you automatically are synced to your ship's orientation (and travel along with it) whenever you exit the ship core. You would have to deliberately try to get off your ship in order for losing it to occur.
You also have the ability to turn on warning popups if you are traveling at a certain speed, so as to avoid accidentally exiting the core in the first place.
If you accidentally dismount your ship and have a grappler, quick reflexes and decent aim can ensure you are back onboard within a few seconds.
Also, crashing or logging out will not affect that either because you automatically spawn back at your ship when you relog.
So you see the chances of you being completely ejected from your ship when its traveling at top speed is extremely unlikely nowadays, and even when it does happen there are a variety of ways you can retrieve it.
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I have literally never seen that.
Also, I like to farm pirates for blocks. Pirates don't tend to like to sit still while you kill them, so when they die they're moving at speed.
Equip your ship with a stop effect weapon.