First of all, one of my favorites, the usage of artificial gravity through centrifugal force. When you put a spin on something it creates g-forces, such as those carnival rides that spin really fast and make you stick to the walls while also forcing your stomach contents upwards. If you put one of those spinning carnival rides in space, then you would be able to walk on the walls almost exactly as you would walk normally on Earth. The reason they don't work that way on Earth is because of the added gravity that already exists from Earth. However, in space, you don't have that gravity.
Honestly, when I watch or read something about NASA's difficulties with the 'space adaptation syndrome,' I always wonder why they don't immediately start experimenting with artificial gravity. It would certainly solve many health issues.
Second, there is no atmosphere in space to protect us from deadly radiation. The Earth protects us from this deadly radiation with its atmosphere and magnetic field. If you've ever seen the 'Northern Lights', they are a good example of proving this radiation's power. I believe in a spaceship, we would need to create our own artificial magnetic field. I'm certainly no scientist and I haven't heard much research being done into this issue, so I'll just use this paragraph to promote some people to START WORKING ON IT, please. I assume you would just need some pretty powerful magnets and some kind of electromagnet layout throughout the ship.
Third, there's the issue of thrust. The rocket boosters we're currently using to get off the planet are very inefficient for long distance traveling. Japan is currently working on a project called Ikaros which is essentially a giant solar wind sail boat powered by the sun's 'wind.' This method seems fairly cheap to build and simple in nature but I'm not so certain about it's maneuverability or speed. There's also ion engines but they are still being worked on in labs and I'm not certain they can be put to any practical uses anytime soon. I suspect that our future spaceships will most likely have several different forms of thrust. Perhaps we would use sails to build up speed and set sail for long voyages and then when we arrive at our destination we would use some combination of ion or rocket engines.
Fourth, there's the issue of resources such as food, water, and oxygen. If we were to build a spaceship and take it on very long voyages to far off planets, then we would need to restock every so often by mining and collecting water and other materials from planets/asteroids and we would need a very efficient method of recycling everything we use. I'm sure with our similar future issues right here on Earth related to this matter, that we will perfect our recycling habits and technologies so I'm not incredibly worried about this issue. This problem is not only important for future space flight, but for our own home world. There will most certainly be plenty of people working on it, I'm sure.
Fifth, there's the issue of shielding. The tiniest of rocks in space can cause enormous damage to a ship. Everything is usually going much faster in space, so a tiny pebble going several hundred miles per hour can be an issue. We're currently working on materials much stronger than steel that should do the trick. One of these materials that I know of is carbon nanotubes. They are essentially carbon molecules wrapped into a cylindrical shape, creating a very tight and tough structure. As the technology for developing these nanotubes develops, we should be able to mass produce the material and create the necessary amount to cover our ships.
And that's just about it. There's probably some other various minor problems that face the engineers working on these things, but these are the five biggest issues to overcome first and it seems, so far, we have solutions. It's only a matter of time until soon we will be going 'to infinity and beyond.'
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