As for steering. use the keypad. 4 and 6 are your roll keys. 8 and 2 are pitch (up and down) 1 and 3 are yaw (rudder/left and right) 5 is a kill rotation key, which sets the autopilot in most crafts to stop any rotation you have, not always easy, quick, or even possible though. Use with caution inside an atmosphere or during time acceleration.
Throttle is the keypad + and - keys. alone they're set to do full thrust forward or reverse for as long as you hold the key down.
ctrl + 'plus' or ctrl + 'minus' will slowly slide the throttle forward or back and leave it there until you change it again. keypad * is the kill thrust key.
keypad zero and 'period' control your hover thrusters, if your craft has them. Most craft have their own set of keys specific to them. A lot use G for landing gear.
keypad 'slash' switches your thrusters from rotation to translation mode. In translation mode, 8 and 2 on the keypad cause your thrusters to slide the craft up and down. 1 and 3 slide it left and right and 9 and 6 (and possibly also 7 and 4, not sure) cause the craft to move forwards and backwards with much more precision than your main thrusters.
If you're used to flight sims, don't be afraid to fly around in the atmosphere a bit. Don't be surprised though if the controls are a bit sluggish. A) Your craft isn't a fighter jet, (usually, some add-ons are) It's a medium/heavy duty cargo/passenger shuttle. B) You can easily get up to speeds much higher than most planes can which can cause your inertia to fight aerodynamics a bit.
hover takeoffs can be easy, the landings a little trickier, but all in all, they're not too dissimilar from flying a helicopter at low speeds, if you're used to those in other sims.
rolling takeoffs are easy, landings easy as well, as long as you have a landing strip and can get yourself lined up. Also, make sure your specific craft is designed for rolling takeoffs/landings
As far as getting into space. Point your nose up and full thrust. As the sky starts to grow darker, slowly level your nose towards the horizon till you get to about 15 degrees then keep it there until your orbit MFD shows a reasonably circular orbit outside of the atmosphere. Learn to use the orbit MFD and what all the numbers mean. This will be one of your best tools.
Also, note, Do NOT try the space shuttle at first. It's completely unforgiving. (Probably why it's generally run entirely by computers anyway except in emergency situations.)