Building up, at the bottom

From 20,000 feet, the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station looks more like a science-fiction lunar colony than an Antarctic science platform. A different picture emerges on the ground. A close inspection of the outpost reveals a long list of documented health and safety hazards. Call it the Mir Space Station of the polar plateau, it is, as one expert says, "a tired old station." But not for long.

As more than 1,000 workers, scientists, and military personnel began their annual migration south to Antarctica last week, their journey marked not just the beginning of the southern hemisphere's summer but also tripped the countdown timer for a blaze of new construction at one of the planet's most extreme destinations: the South Pole.

Building on the bottom of the planet - and especially at the South Pole - has no earthly comparisons. Antarctica is the coldest, highest, driest, windiest continent on earth. With 8,000 miles of ocean and ice between the South Pole and the closest South American city, the work is more like an interplanetary journey than an intercontinental project.

Distance has never curbed man's interest in the Pole. Ever since Roald Amundsen set foot at the South Pole on Dec. 14, 1911, beating British explorer Robert Falcon Scott by 21 days, humankind's fixation with it has endured. Long regarded as the crown jewel of the southern-most continent, control of the geographic South Pole is seen as both a science smorgasbord and a geopolitical stabilizer.

"Just our presence on the continent helps," says Karl Erb, director of the Office of Polar Programs and head of the United States Antarctic Program (USAP). "We are a broker for international cooperation. We have a logistic ability to mount big projects. We provide a leadership role on the continent."

To fulfill this obligation, the National Science Foundation initiated an eight-year, $128 million reconstruction plan, now in its third season. Known as the South Pole Redevelopment Project (SPRP), it is the largest building effort ever undertaken in the Antarctic. In 1999 alone, USAP (managed by the National Science Foundation) secured $90 million in funding for science-related construction projects in the Antarctic, nearly $40 million of which was appropriated for the reconstruction of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.

Completed in 1975, and designed to house just 18 people in winter and 33 in summer, the South Pole Station has long surpassed its 20 year design life. "We are reaching a critical time in the life of existing facilities. It is either replace or close," says Frank Brier, facilities engineering projects manager of the Office of Polar Programs. "The US has decided to retain the South Pole for science. It is the cost of doing business in Antarctica."

And in Antarctica, doing business means doing science. Over the last quarter century, the South Pole has become one of the most prized scientific platforms on the planet. Along with that popularity has come a surge in demand for space.

"The interest of the science community has grown tremendously," says John Rand, project engineer for the SPRP. "More infrastructure is needed, specifically in astronomy."

Driving the South Pole's popularity are its unmatched conditions to collect earth's cleanest air, to observe the ozone hole, and to carry out astronomical observations.

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