Just as an FYI for everyone who's replaying this little gem: there's a file called nglide_config.exe in the game's directory. It allows you (amongst other things) to force another resolution on the game. Because of the way this game was made, this results in some VERY pretty graphics.
HOWEVER, if you choose "too high" a resolution (realistically, the game will auto-detect the highest supported for everyone - 1024*768), you may/will get a glitch where your ship spins wildly out of control as soon as you enter space. Alt-tabbing to the desktop for just a split second will solve this. You do have to do this again *every time* you launch the game, so it's a bit of an annoying work around.
I'm not aware of a way to fix this permanently, though I imagine it may be possible for someone to code up a mod for this.

I set 1920x1080 and don't have spinning bug :) But I know it is something that other people experience.

Using 1680x1050 I get the spinning bug whenever I launch my ship, but a quick Alt-Tab out and back in stops it. The game really does look so good at high resolutions, though, due to the level of detail on the textures of the 3D models. Would be great if this spinning issue could be fixed properly.