Cold Comfort: Antarctic Research Stations

Check out THIS very cool photo article from WIRED (warning: a six-page slide show) showing detailed photos and stats of cutting-edge research bases in Antarctica.

These bases are fascinating in and of themselves, but if you're into writing science fiction or scifi RPGs, these are probably the closest in real life you're going to come to the kind of bases we may eventually establish on other worlds and moons and (maybe someday) in other star systems. A number of space agencies have been involved with the designing of antarctic bases for decades now, and view them as good real-world tests for not only technologies but in seeing how crews adapt and interact with each other over long periods of isolated deployment together. The latter could come in very useful on future long term voyages to nearby planets and asteroids.