国际英语新闻：Shuttle Endeavour's Mission and the Seach for Origins of Universe

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer is a sophisticated detector that will look for elusive evidence of anti-matter, searching for anti-carbon and anti-helium among all the discernible particles. Ting used a down-to-earth example to explain this spectrometer's extraordinary precision. 

"In the city of Houston, during a rainy season, you have about 10 billion raindrops per second. If you want to find one that's of a different color, it's somewhat difficult."  

The spectrometer that will be mounted to the space station's truss will search for the equivalent of that raindrop of a different color. It will give a glimpse of what can be detected, but cannot be seen. That, Ting explained, is what makes the space station such an amazing orbiting laboratory.

Not that life aboard the space station is all work and no play. 

At one point, before the shuttle Endeavour's launch was delayed to mid-April, Commander Kelly would have been on board the space station at the same time as his identical twin brother, Scott, who was part of the crew on the space station at that time. It would have been the first time brothers, let alone twins, would have been on the ISS together. Mark Kelly divulged that the brothers had plans for a prank when the Endeavour orbiter was docked at the station.

"We've been asked to do this switch-places thing since we were in kindergarten, and we've always resisted it."

But, apparently, the temptation has grown stronger for the twins.

"My plan was to change shirts, shave my mustache. He had a fake one. I'd get back in the orbiter. You know, somebody would have thought that was him and I was on the ISS, so that was the plan."

When a reporter asked if that was really true, Kelly responded, "Yeah, yeah it is." The assembled press got a good laugh out this.

Three of this mission's six crew members have flown on Endeavour before. Astronaut Gregory Chamitoff is part of Endeavour's 25th and final flight. Chamitoff said Endeavour was the first shuttle to bring a piece of the space station into space, and now it is going to carry up the spectrometer, which is the station's final major piece of external hardware.

"Book-ending (being at both ends of) the entire construction of the space station, and, you know, that's a legacy for the whole space shuttle program, not just for Endeavour," said Chamitoff.

The shuttle fleet is being retired this year so NASA can focus on developing the next generation of spacecraft that could go beyond low-Earth-orbit.

Endeavour is set to blast off April 19.