Solid gravedig here, especially past Gazz's remark:

Gazz wrote: It would definitely be a big advantage at the start of the game when you don't have much of a fleet to do a lot of scouting.
Eventually the player's mobile means may surpass those of a station but this "borrowing" of a station's abilities could bridge the gap between early and late gameplay, which is generally a tricky thing to do.

I feel that if there's any "high tech" or "top secret" observational equipment on-station, there should be some kind of reputation prerequisite for being able to access that, but I think access to essential radar scans, system news reports, local market data, and ship traffic are reasonable kinds of data to see on a display while docked and disembarked.

As an extension of this idea, perhaps the player could buy or ask for scanner usage from other pilots (hiring scouts, essentially, but without the direct orders to probe a particular area) so that data on regions these pilots explore will be transmitted to the player's records the next time it's possible to exchange information with them. It's kinda like a botnet, but for mapping or tracking scanner activity.