Sending simple goal in an unmapped environment

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Unfortunately no. Both the current position of the robot and the goal pose need to be in a region that is marked as unoccupied in the map. You can try this for yourself (instructions are for Fuerte):

1. start the PR2 in Gazebo: roslaunch pr2_gazebo pr2_wg_world.launch
2. start move_base + gmapping: roslaunch pr2_2dnav_slam pr2_2dnav.launch
3. start RViz: rosrun rviz rviz -d $(rospack find pr2_navigation_slam)/rviz/move_base_slam.vcg
4. start teleop: roslaunch pr2_teleop teleop_keyboard.launch

Now you can try sending move_base commands using the "2D Nav Goal" button in RViz; nothing will happen, because the PR2 itself is still in unexplored space. Use the teleop window to move the PR2 around until it is well in explored space. Now sending goals in explored (and unoccupied) space should work, but sending goals in unexplored space does not.