Neither is sexist. Chick is just slang for female, like dude is slang for male. I also know the main developer for this game is a man, it's the same man who developed the other, older, Elite games. I'm afraid you'll have to get your daily quota of being offended somewhere else.
If we are being 100% historically accurate then "chick" the same as "bird" was used in the English language and
some people have said this implies that women are compared with birds in cages there to look pretty and be controlled by men.
I am a strong believer that racism, sexism etc are all about intent. If it is not intended to be derogatory/inflammatory and is an "honest mistake" a quick apology should suffice, determining if it was not meant to be offensive is another matter however and isn't always straight forward.
In this particular case "chick" can also be a regional slang such as the Yorkshire accent has "love" and "duck" so I would say it isn't offensive. Also remember that some people are out there and want to find something offensive to shout and argue about
On topic: Kind of, there was another thread a while back that had a side by side view and a fade in/out between the two that was interesting. I'd say inspired by but not copied.
