Hadn't there been a ship they sold for 1000$ or even more? And it sold nonetheless... You gotta please the whales.
From the start it has been toutet as "donating for the game to be made, the ships are only "extras/gifts" that you get when you donate" and for some reason, for some people, that flips the proverbial switch.
If they'd gone ahead and told everyone: "Hey guys, we're making a game and we have microtransactions where we sells ships for 1000 dollars before launch ... they would probably have gotten a laugh or even torches and pitchforks right away ... but somehow the line "YOU are helping US to make a game with your money that would not otherwise be made" got people aboard ... and then it got all twisted and even tho everyone knows they are now buying spaceships for 300 or even thousand dollars, i.e. the epitome of "evil microtransactions" in the gaming world, it is now suddenly "ok" and if anyone says otherwise someone quotes the token "hey ,it's not really buying, it's donating for the game, man!" line and the forum majority agrees with it.
The fact that, if anything, people gave Chris Roberts way too much money already and the game would most likely be in a better state if he had had to work with a tighter budget and (assuming best intentions in this case) would have been forced to concentrate on the core game, somehow isn't even relevant over there either. It really appears to be all about the latest (JPG) ships now for most people and the weird history of the kickstarter campaign somehow makes it all "ok", or rather, i suspect, people just stopped thinking about it the way that they usually do with the forum majority being as it is.
What you get is sort: "Microtransactions 2.0, where the customer is happier the more the pay, especially since what they pay is for some yet unrealised future "dream" of a game instead of an actual finished/playable game where they might think twice about it. I.e. I think not yet actually seeing the results of what your money gets you and instead investing in a future "dream of a game ... or "ship"" is a major part of what is going on there as well.
Bottom line: Psychology is weird. And Chris Roberts is either a blundering fool or an evil overlord grade mastermind.