RE: New Antarctic Stations: Living and Working on the Last Unsettled Continent!
Great write-up! You're right about us humans sizing up unexplored land and wondering if we can make a go of living there. I don't think it will happen in Antarctica for a long time, as the undoubtedly beautiful structures already there look like governments making a statement: monuments. Real settling, mass settling for livin' there, is usually utilitarian and cheap.
There's one frontier that's been largely ignored even by the sci-fi community: living underwater. Even Robert A. Heinlein punted on the idea: of of his planned juvenile novels was entitled Ocean Ranger but he never got around to writing it.
Ocean living did pop up its head in the survivalist circuit, tho' only at the talk level: discussions about a very rich fellow, or group of rich folks, buying a decommissioned submarine and converting it into a kind of underwater boarding house to live in after a nuclear holocaust.
A man after my own heart! Underwater habitats have long been a fascination with mine, but it was some painful and realistic things I accepted about their high cost per cubic meter that led me to believe we will sooner colonize Antarctica, or the deserts (many of which we've in fact already built extensively in) than the continental shelf.
I was in fact involved for some years with the only organization in the world actively trying to build general use underwater living space for large numbers of people. For the aforementioned economic reasons, it hasn't gotten far.
Good point: it certainly explains why underwater habitats never took off. As with space travel, the only viable market aon are rich folks with a lot of money on their hands that are looking for a brag :) Even that hope, though, only suggests an underwater motel.
I'd keep my eye on the other end of the globe: the Arctic. If Elon Musk's plan for satellite-delivered Internet accessible over the entire globe gets off the ground (sorry), a huge slice of "cabin-fever" land will become livable. Moreso if Internet telecommuting becomes a viable way of making a living.
Or mariculture. I would not be surprised to see small habitats used to facilitate saturation diving, in support of very large offshore fish farms. They just haven't yet reached the scale where it's necessary, the current installations can all be maintained by surface divers working out of a boat.
There's actually already an underwater hotel: www.jul.com
Right: Fish farms are viable right now: I have proof in the local grocery store :)