Just wondering.
It was named after the ship commanded by Captain Cook during his South Pacific explorations.
Aliens speak, and write, the Queen’s English, not that provincial Americanese.
Because it is the only way it should be spelled and yeah the whole Captain Cook thing.
They spelled it that way because of the way the orbiter is oriented while in orbit: Bass ackwards.
Because they wanted it to spell ruovaedne backwards.
One accurate answer, and a string of lame jokes.
Gotta love this place.
Once the correct answer is given, what point is there in repeating it?
At the risk of making the string of lameness longer:
If they hadn’t spelled it the way they did, Endeavour wouldn’t have been an anagram for “A Nude Rove”. Cecil has addressed such naughty topics but it seems he did not get to the bottom of things.
Y’all are the best.
It should be noted that all of the space shuttles are named after water vessels that went on voyages of research.
Except for the prototype Enterprise, which was named after a fictional space ship, which may or may not’ve been named after a water vessel. 
Even Enterprise was officially named after the water vessel; they just chose a water vessel that happened to conveniently also have a famous science fiction ship named after it.
The Space Beagle would have been better.
Which one? This NASA page only mentions the Star Trek connection.
The Enterprise in Star Trek was named after the nuclear wessel, so it’s all the same.
“Come for accurate answers. Stay for the lame jokes.”
Good job HMS Cockchafer wasn’t a survey ship, despite having the ideal name for an exploratory vessel.
We tried that name for a space probe, it didn’t end well.
The linked Wikipedia entry includes this:
“The rear admiral [of the Cockchafer] on the Yangtze decided that the matter would have to be settled by force.”
Ouch!
Oh, so THAT’S what that thing that flew over my house yesterday was.
Thanks for explaining. I was just looking in the opposite direction as all those people.
She certainly is.