Ever since I heard about this game I wanted to make a sort of "free" station, that had like a sort of neutral approach and inception in its core. People could sell and buy whatever they wanted, or meet up for missions or quests there.
Would it be possible to do that relatively safely?
Is it
possible? Sure. Is it realistic? Not at all.
The way that someone would realistically achieve this would be with overwhelming force.
This would serve as a massive beacon for anyone that wants a fight, so you'd need an incredibly strong and experienced fleet to defend and enforce things.
Even then, you'd have trouble without some game mechanics assisting in the incentives department. You'd need it to be "worth it". You'll be expending tons of man hours and resources to fight attackers and to enforce rules, so you'd want there to be some sort of influx of resources as a result of you doing this, otherwise you are putting yourself at a disadvantage to other groups that don't have that drain.
It's possible that you could provide services like ability to offline ships and use station facilities for a price, and that could fund things, but then they'd need significant incentive to go to you to buy the services instead of making their own station or making the trek back to the safe zone.