(TFT) Navagation

[Jay Carlisle <maou.tsaou@gmail.com>]

I'm curious if anybody here knows anything about this.
<looks in Mark's direction>
No I'm not talking about spherical trig or anything so earthbound.
My hardcopy volumes of Pub. No. 9 is from '75.
Being up here in 'Deadliest Catch' country it spooked me to find that
these 'captains' can hardly pilot much less dead reckon and celestial
navigation is unknown.
Without the modern Radio, Radar, or Satellite aids these guys are
pretty much dead in the water if they have to hit a particular point
quickly.
But in space no one can hear you scream when you realize your sight
reduction tables won't help you find your way.
Once your over the top of the GPS satellites they don't seem to work...
So how do I get from here to there in space without assuming a 'ground
control' and all the headaches that come with ground guidance?
Current state of the art still seems to be focused on some specialized
celestial techniques for on board nav.
http://www.psatellite.com/research/dsnav.php
My assumption currently is that this is sufficient to get out into the
plane of the ecliptic and start dropping navigation 'buoys'.
Good enough for government work and may be able to hop all the way to
the Centauri system this way if the Oort clouds between are close
enough.
But where would things go from there?
It's taken Voyager about 35 years to go about 120 AUs and it may have
a few years to go before it goes interstellar.
Seems a long wait to get a buoy in the ocean so to speak.
Still, it's not unfunctional.
The Norse sailed up the coast above 60 degrees lat and then dead
reckoned west looking for piloting clues like birds, clouds, waves,
etc. to find Iceland, Greenland, and North America.
No piloting clues or sunstones in space but if you can find a fixed
position (ha!) like a nav beacon then you should be able to dead
reckon from there to the general area of where your trying to get to.
How do they do it on Star Trek?
Star Wars?
Is there something new on the horizon that only needs a little
unobtainium to work or do I need a spell or two to get GPS-style
interstellar navigation?
Any thoughts?
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