Up in the status window, I see messages of people trading high volumes of high priced goods on what are apparently other planets. I see on the travel menu that it says you can leave the planet from Cape Canaveral, but how is this done? When should you do it? What does it take to move up to the next level?

Yeah in this game you can leave the Earth and go to other planets on the solar system etc..To do that you need to have license level 10 to be able to buy a rocket and around 100 million...as long as you got these 2 things you can go to space from every town thats sell the rocket and rocket fuel

Hope that was some help :))

You can only leave the planet from Cape Canaveral.
You can buy the rocket at every TeckLevel 5 City.
But Cape Canaveral is the only city you can go to space.
So the best way is to buy the rocket fuel, go to cape canaveral.
Sell the fuel there (cause the fuel is expensive there)
Sell your vehicle.
Buy the Rocket.
Buy the fuel again.
And start.
I's not recomenten to go with 100 Mio cause its good to have 100 Mio left to go on dealing in space.