I found this game on gamehippo a year or so ago and i was hooked for like a month straight. i started to play it recently and now i am hooked again 
. not many people know about this game, but they should. Basically there is this virtual galaxy with billions of stars, each star can have planets, each planet can have moons. you can fly to each individual star, and you can land on and explore each individual planet / moon (of which there are billions of). It is 3d also. The current version is Noctis IV , it has low resolution but that doesnt stop the fun at all (the next version is due out anytime now and it features better graphics, and high resolution).i am not going to say anymore, ill just let you see for yourself, enjoy : http://anywherebb.com/noctis.html
I thought it was rather pointless, though interesting. Bored me to death after a while.
I’ll wait for now, the graphics look a lot like early 1990’s
one of the best spaces sims i’ve found is Independence War 2. its got the best physics game engine i’ve ever seen. the technology makes sence, and your being led by a guy who got killed in the intro movie of independence war 1 (his mind was downloaded to the ships computer a few seconds before his death, at first he was pissed of about it but after 150 years of being in a memory storage unit he has cooled down a bit)