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Show Page A THL l VILV HtRU.D. Pn. t Uh, Saturday October 24. IW4 NAS A helping in Jamestown pro Training film features By MARK ST. JOHN ERICKSON Newport News Daily Press Elli. Jt-da- n HAMPTON. Va. stands in a small, darkened rwm peering at the cluster of hanging on the wall. " Lots of surprises" the archaeologist sas, pushing his nose up close to one of the glowing pictures. Only a few minutes before, Jordan and fellow conservator Michael Latin had started to unbox doens of mysterious, lumps found at the site of the first permanent English settlement in the New World. Working under the watchful eye of NASA engineering technician Bob Berry, they arranged the puzzling clods under the lens of an industrial machine at Lang-le- y Research Center's evaluation radiographic lab. Soon, the first sheets of film were spitting out of the developing machine and slapping into a wire hopper. From there, they went to the gleaming white surface of the fluorescent lightbox. where Jordan. Lav in and Berry smiled broadly as the secrets of the hidden artifacts unfolded. Instead of rusty blobs, the turned up a handw rough! hinge, a box lock, a hasp and a gang mold used for pouring lead muskel halls. They also uncovered a cauldron leg. a knife handle and a strap used for hanging kettles over a fire. "This is much better than going to a lot of trouble for something that's not much more than a big block of nails." says Lavin. who performs most of the iron conservation work for the Jamestown Rediscovery project. "It can take a week just to clean one bag of these things and then find it's out you something that's not worth cleaning." No one knows exactly how much work the NASA have saved the archaeologists at Jamestow n. Using the pictures as a guide, they cut the time needed to clean an iron breastplate to around 100 hours. Lavin says. Over the past two-plu- s years, the scientists have brought dozens of promising yet ambiguously shaped lumps of rusty clay to Berry's lab. hoping to avoid the tedium and risk of doing their work unaided. The objects have ranged from slender bridle bits to broad ax heads, and they include such significant finds as the breastplate and a cabasset helmet. "Some of them we think we know before we come down here, and some of them we have no idea." Jordan says. "Il lets you know right off the bat what you're working with." The highly detailed pictures also help the archaeologists determine the smartest methods for conserving the often fragile pieces of iron. Using equipment designed to WASHINGTON (AP) "Move, c'mon move," you think, watching the film of a train approaching a school bus stopped on its tracks. But it doesn't move, until the locomotive b!as!s it out of !he w ay. ripping the bus open and sending it spinning off. For that train, hitting a stopped bus has the same effect as the bus would have running over a little can of cola, 'ays Gerri L. Hall, executive director of Operation Lifesaver. which prepared the film to help train bus drivers. Moments later the same crash is repeated, and this time the terrifying scene is captured by a camera inside the bus. The film was previewed Wednesday at Washington's busy Union Station. The combined effort of government, business and private safety organizations, it is being sent to bus companies and school districts across the nation. The goal is preventing such accidents in the future, but much of the talk was of the day nearly a year ago, Oct. 25. 1995. when a school bus and train crashed in Fox River Grove. III. Stoppii.g at a traffic light, the substitute school driver was unaware her vehicle extended back over a railroad track. t rust-color- " Nr .) m J&z X-r- saw-tooth- bus crash train-scho- ol V "V-ft- i I . a Photo Elliot Jordan looks over of Jamestown, Va., technology to leam more about the first permanent artifacts with Bob Berry, a NASA engineering techEnglish settlement In the New World. The nician. Archaeologists like Jordan are using the save archaeologists a lot of work. case-b- y ferret out design and manufacturcase basis, he says. But ing information about its constructhe Jamestown project because ing flaws in aircraft and space tion that may have saved the artiflight hardware, they can identify fact from damage during a risky of its unique historical importance weak areas that need special treathas been treated as a top move. Most such jobs are selected on a ment. And they can weigh the benefits of cleaning an extremely rare artifact by hand or with such laboratory, techniques as electroly sis. "This feels heavy, so it seems like it should be sturdy enough to go through electrolysis." Jordan says, holding up a chunk of rust that hides an ax head and a skeleton key. "But you'd probably lose part of it if you did because of the extensive corrosion." No ordinary medical could provide enough detail to make such delicate judgments. The fine and extra-fin- e grade film used here is about 10 times more sensitive than 1) Built-i- n that normally used in hospitals. Berry says. The exposure times are far longer, too. averaging about a minute or so for each of more than about a dozen pieces of film. ID "Here, we're capable of imaging a couple of hundred lines of data per millimeter." Berry says. "If you got five with medical film, you'd be really happy." The Jamestown project isn't the first conservation job that the NASA engineering technician has worked on over the years. Berry helped conservators at Colonial Williamsburg scan the upholstery of a priceless Masonic chair after the lab at the Smithsonian Institution ran into problems. He also surveyed the gilded "Lancaster Eagle" figurehead at The Mariners' Museum, uncover -- 1 A) FREE Paging 18th-centu- ry Moments later il was too late seven youngsters died in the crash. "Il was iragic. Il was needless. It could have been prevented. Thai's why we are here loday," Transportation Secretary Federico Pena said. Developed by Operation Lifesaver. a national group that works to prevent accidents at railroad grade crossings, the training program was financed by $70,000 from Pena's department. Don LaFord of Parkton, Md., an Operation Lifesaver activist, said the program will heighten drivers' concern about railroad crossings, in particular helping them dangerous recognize intersections like the one in Illinois. Barbara Belk of Suitland, Md.. said 8 intersections in her state have already been identified as posing similar dangers. In the Illinois case the short distance between the railroad and the stoplight increased the hazard for long vehicles like school buses. 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