I don't know about the other stations there, they are all along the coastlines. Only the US has an inland station at the south pole and only about 45-50 people live there in the winter. In the summer about 150 people live there. But summer is kind of misnomer because the average temperature is well below zero. I just checked the weather at the south pole a bit ago and right now it is -68F with a wind chill index of -103F. They are in winter there right now in total darkness 24 hrs a day.
The original station built in 1956 only lasted 10 years before it became buried in drifted snow. The next station was a high-tech aluminum dome with prefab housing units inside it. That also became buried in drifted snow and it partially crushed it. There is little snowfall there, but significant drifting snow that buries things.
The present station is built on pedestals and has angled surfaces so the snow blows underneath it but doesn't build up. It is the most expensive off-grid housing on earth and it took 9 years to build it. The powerplant houses three Caterpillar 3512 generators, only one of which is required to power and heat the station. The output of one generator is 1.2MW. They also have a Cat 3406 peaking generator that produces 450KW. The station uses a combination of glycol and electric heating. Electric is more efficient than glycol because electric resistance heating is almost 100% power efficient. The glycol heating is used primarily to melt ice for water. There is no propane gas, no other fuel-oil burning heating at the south pole. The sole heat source is the running generator engine. The power plant and generator room is more than 100 feet below the ice.
The station itself is quite large. It is 80,000 sq ft on two floors. It is steel beam construction with 18" thick foam panels with glued plywood on both sides for walls, floor and roof. The fuel required to sustain the station is about 1,200 gallons of diesel fuel per day. That might sound like a lot, but it is the most fuel and energy efficient off-grid structure ever built by the human race considering its size. Far more efficient than the International Space Station, which requires millions of gallons of fuel to service it, and even to get a person back and forth to it. This is a somewhat of a picture tour of it
https://glacierexplorer.com/2013/01/amundsen-scott-south-pole-station-oasis-in-the-desert/Other people have done video tours of South Pole Station that you can find on the internet. The people that live in the station in the winter are more remote and isolated than the astronauts on the International Space Station. In 1998 Dr Jerri Nielson, the station physician, diagnosed herself with cancer during the winter. No rescue for her was possible. She performed surgery on herself and was eventually rescued in the spring. The cancer went into remission, but recurred seven years later, eventually causing her death in 2009.
This is a pretty good video of the logistics of supporting living in Antarctica. Elon Musk does not need to go to Mars, he can set up his own base in Antarctica and see if he can get electric tractors to work, it's the same difference.
