QUESTION:
For Mike Mellon: Could you please send me some information about 
the day-to-day tasks of your job?

ANSWER from Mike Mellon on November 24, 1996:
I do a variety of things in my job, which is partly why I like the 
work so much. My time is divided up between working on 
experiments in the laboratory, working on computer programs in my 
office, reading, and discussing ideas with coworkers. When I get 
results from my research I spend time writing it up for publication 
so other scientists can learn what I've discovered. I also travel to 
meetings in other cities to present my results and to listen to other 
people's results.

Sometimes my work can be tedious, such as looking through catalogs
and ordering laboratory equipment or searching through books in the
library trying to find some little bit of information I need to 
complete a project. And then after hours I might find that the one 
book I need is not in the library.

However, most of the time I find my work exciting. In the laboratory 
I'm doing experiments to learn about ice on Mars and the nature of
martian soil; today, Mars is extremely cold and water can only exist
as ice. On the computer I am creating simulations of martian geology
and how ice plays a role in the formation of some geologic features.
I then compare the results of these simulations with images of Mars 
taken by past spacecraft missions. By doing such comparisons I hope 
to determine which geologic features on Mars owe there existence to 
ice.

The variety of different tasks that I do as part of by job keeps 
things interesting. I rarely get bored with doing one thing for too 
long. And there is so much work to do that, if I do start to get bored, 
I work for a while on something different and equally important.

Mike Mellon