Vega Strike is an open source 3d space sim,you can fight trade and explore.
It is under continual developement and has been used by many mods/conversions such as
Privateer Geminii Gold,Vega Trekand Privateer Remake .
It reminds me of Elite and you can make changes to it very easily .
Full details and downloads here
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/