My experience corroborates this. In addition, I believe that slow exploration increases your chance of finding something, especially when you're exploring your own Tula. According to one piece of advice I read it also reduces the chance of your explorer simply vanishing without notice, but I can't back that up anecdotally. My experience is that lost explorers are the single greatest cause of lost characters in the game, ans I always explore slowly.
>
> On exploration, I think (not positive) that the fast/normal/slow exploration speed affects how wide a swath of map is uncovered (slow showing the most, as well as being the safest--basically send your crew on slow unless you have some need to rush, like to get it done before year end)