Was this confirmed? 'cause I saw some developer dude talking at length about creating something like Journey where you aren't able to verbally interact with the folk in your airspace specifically to dissuade people from padding up with their friends in an attempt to not create that "Bully" culture you might meet in games such as Rust/Ark/The Division where people are given the opportunities to be wolves'n'shyt.
But for real, fukk all that shyt, I want to hop into my space ship, chop it up with some brehs in party chat and go do fukk all. I'm sure alot of people (Myself included) started doubting the game a bit when we heard that they were purposefully (at the time, who knows what they are doing now) negating that aspect that most everyone thought would be a driving feature. I dunno, I honestly hope they do.
No, they haven't said anything like that, but I think a few months down the line they'll bow to pressure and add some new gadget like a wormhole or something that can get two players beside each other.