The Next Step, What it Would Take: Part One, Navigation

 As the title suggests i am going to talk about all of the things that would be needed in a ship that was going to be leaving the planet earth for a longer period of time. By that i mean longer than a year with no contact with our planet, an example of this would be a large ship going to a new planet.
The first thing that this ship would need would be a navigation system, this is to even arrive there. Remember that moving through space is unlike anything on earth. One way you could navigate through space would be to use the sun and known orbits of the planets. This way you would have an item that doesn't move (it does but not relative to this said ship), the only problem with this method is that you wouldn't be able to use it if you left this solar system. Another method you could use is to use the center of our galaxy as a replacement for our sun and use photos as a map.
 But a more likely and more effective method would to use a form of the Doppler Effect called Redshift/Blueshift. Redshift and Blueshift work by our current understanding of light, that being that light is a wave (and a particle but ignore this for now) and it has a specific wave length. In Redshift or Blueshift, if you move toward an item that is producing light than its light turns a shade of blue, if you are moving away from an item that is emitting light, it would turn more red. To use this idea than you could use a picture taken from your location (floating in space where ever), from here you would compare it to other photos to locate the place you want to go to. After you locate what direction your destination is in you would accelerate towards it. At this point two new things are needed, one you would need to be going really fast, and second, you would need something to monitor the 'color' (frequency) of this stars light. This way as you approach this star your computer will inform you when you need to slow. But just like everything this only works if you are Not using a FLT (faster than light) mode of transportation, so it is not a permanent method of navigation. My money would be on the mapping of this galaxy and then pre-programming that into on board spaceship computers.

(this is Redshift and Blueshift examples if you didn't get it)

 When humans first took to the seas we didn't know about the shorelines. We will just have to learn all over again, and i hope and believe that our future generations push through this challenge.
(maybe we will find a Nice extraterrestrial species and they can help us, but i doubt it)

Next we are going to go over either Water or Energy, i dont know yet.