Since Oolite is a opensource version of the first Elite, not Elite Frontier, or First Encounter it does not sport the Newtonian Physics alas. Since it came out on the BBC micro first and 3d rendering was non existent, it wouldn’t have made sense to include that in the engine. Elite was the first “3D” game so to speak, but it was all wireframe graphics and the FPS rate was horrible, at least on my version on the C64, that was before there were PC’s the Commodore 64, which was the forefather of the Amiga, if that rings any bells.
Someone in the community might have created an .oxp (modification pack) to emulate Newtonian physics but out of the box, no its like Freelancer.
If you want elite and the retro looking stuff you should pay a visit to the frontier astro website, you can download all old Elite games there and some remakes too.
http://www.frontierastro.co.uk/