Yes, this is frustrating. Apparently, some people manage to get enough of an adrenalin kick from this sort of danger mechanic that they defend it. All the better for them ; I personally cannot fathom that kind of thrill... In that situation, I just go hrough various stages of annoyance with a dip in frustration, and I close the game before getting angry.
And you know, I think that there is a sweet spot in balancing unforgiving, high-risk, high-reward mechanics. EDIT: (Re-reading this, I started to giggle maniacally, because I implied that exploration is actually a rewarding mechanic... heeheehee... hilarious... *sigh*) The good ones make you clench your teeth and jump right back into the fray no matter how many times you fall (totally not hinting at dark souls...) and the bad ones just make you turn off the game. Which is funny considering how combat logging solves anything related to the present issue (huehuehue).
To me, there should be some kind of additional mechanic related to exploration. Either a ship could be fitted with a black box :
New size 1 internal : Quantum Entanglement Black Box:
This powerful piece of technology is a single-use module that is programmed to copy and transfer exploration data across space and time, usualy to a designated space station, in the event of an exploration ship's destruction. Upon said destruction, the module activates and tries to transfer as much data as possible in the limited time before the ship's total destruction. As it uses its own power cell and pretty much "burns through" the mass of entangled particles on use, this model does not appear after ship rebuy.
Every grade allows the player to save 20% of total exploration data, up to grade 5 which saves the entirety of said data upon death.
However, the price for this fancy piece of life-saving tech goes from 500 000 credits for grade E to 50 M for grade A. As it will activate no matter how much data is sent, diying early in a trek through the stars will prove very costly to the pilot.
New Mechanic : Survey Data Cache Synthesis :
Or, the ship could synthesize Survey Data Caches after a full system scan, which would contain all meaningful exploration data and could be redeemed in the same way as standard, in-ship-memory data.
This method could only work through synthesis and would require a couple of semi-rare elements, and would only be available after a full system scan with the detailed Surface Scanner.
This would make most exploration data still lost upon death (because most systems aren't worth so much effort), but it would allow the player to safeguard the ost interesting pice of intel from a trip.
Also, given that this would require inventory space, it would force the pilot to choose between jump range and saving data.
Both options would seem pretty balanced to me ; )