The chart room is a room near the bridge that holds all the maps of the waterways, or charts as the navy calls them. From here the path is drawn and redrawn many times as currents change, harbors are changed by climate or humans, and designated ports are changed for political reasons or due to climate. The path of a ship is rarely what is planned as it leaves port and is a constant pain for those tasked to update the course.
Granted, on a space ship it may make more sense for a computer to plan the course and navigate the ship. After all, technology will advance a great deal and already we can put our cars in cruise control and not work so hard on the road. Why then has every show or movie I’ve seen show a pilot always at its station? Why does it seem like the ship barely moves without someone at the wheel, so to say? Even in space the ships would be pulled by different gravitational streams, it needs a conscious sentient hand to make it stay the course and not wind up hitting something or destroying the ship. Besides, even an AI would be unable to adjust the ship’s direction fast enough to avoid hitting things at the speed it would need to travel to make space travel in a single lifetime feasible. As to a computer setting the path and choosing the route a ship will take, I highly doubt we will ever reach the level of technology for me to trust a path laid in without any input given by the pilot other than the destination. At the very least I would hope the computer gave the pilot or captain a few paths to choose from and the sentient being made the final decision.
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