Gravity: Time Dilation or Death

[Good4you]

Say there were a black hole near Earth (either recently found or created) that we could travel to. With similar technology available to us today, if we built a spaceship and came as close to the black hole as possible without the effects of gravity breaking the ship apart or ripping our bodies to shreds, at that distance from the black hole; do you suppose we could run cool experiments or see noticeable effects of time dilation, or would you have to move in even closer and end up dieing before you could conduct your experiment?

This idea came to me while watching a Star Gate episode where time was slowed down near a black hole, i couldn't help but thinking you would be dead before you even realized time was running slowly compared to your friends which are not near the black hole.

 

[mgb_phys]

You can see noticeable effects of time dilation between the top floor of the physics lab and the basement if you have sensitive enough clocks (it's been done)

 

[Good4you]

I suppose i kinda knew that, but i was thinking more along the lines of something you could notice without sophisticated equipment. Enough to were communicating with the outside world becomes difficult. Or when you look back at Earth it looks like people are moving really fast or something.