The best space exploration game I've played is Outer Wilds (https://store.steampowered.com/app/753640/Outer_Wilds/), but instead of the NMS sandbox there are puzzles.

I couldn't get into every day dialog etched in stone. It's one thing to find an old ruin that has some profound sounding thing like "All men are created equal". But it's beyond the pale for people to write tablets that are effectively mundane things like "Woke up and had breakfast".

Outer Wilds is really an amazing game. I highly recommend playing it without looking at anything online: when I started I reached for google every time I was stuck, just to realise I could have found answers if I has searched just a little bit more. After a while I stuck to a rule to never look at answers online, and it was such a bliss to finally crack puzzles after trying lots of different things.

one of those games where i wish i could erase my memory just to play it again, still think about it, i think it's like a year ago i played it, maybe more. idk. great game.

I played it recently. Very good game (although mediocre ending if we're being honest). The thing they did really really well is that it's true exploration in the sense that you could complete the game very quickly if you've already played it, because the only thing you need to complete it is some knowledge that you discover by exploring.

For example there might be a wormhole that takes you to a different destination if you fly through it backwards. You're very unlikely to find that out by chance, but if you explore you'll find a thing that tells you (probably behind some other puzzle).

Great game.