McMurdo Station is a U.S. Antarctic research centre located on the southern tip of Ross Island, which is in the New Zealand-claimed Ross Dependency on the shore of McMurdo Sound in Antarctica. It is operated by the United States through the United States Antarctic Program, a branch of the National Science Foundation. The station is the largest community in Antarctica, capable of supporting up to 1,258 residents, and serves as the United States Antarctic science facility. All personnel and cargo going to or coming from Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station first pass through McMurdo.

Space shuttle Atlantis (R) remains docked to the International Space Station photographed by NASA astronaut Ronald Garan during a planned six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk July 12, 2011 in space. Space shuttle Atlantis has embarked on a 12-day mission to the International Space Station where it will deliver the Raffaello multi-purpose logistics module packed with supplies and spare parts. This was the final mission of the space shuttle program, which began on April 12, 1981 with the launch of Colombia. (Photo by NASA via Getty Images)

A camel rests at a fuel station in the Judean desert near the West Bank city of Jericho January 11, 2015. Reuters photographers from Mali to Mexico have shot a series of pictures of fuel stations. Whether it is plastic bottles by the roadside in Malaysia or a futuristic forecourt in Los Angeles, fuel stations help define our world. Oil prices steadied above $48 a barrel on Tuesday, recovering from earlier losses as the dollar weakened against the euro. Oil prices have dropped nearly 60 percent since peaking in June 2014 on ample global supplies from the U.S. shale oil boom and a decision by OPEC to keep its production quotas unchanged. (Photo by Baz Ratner/Reuters)

A member of the Philippine National Police stands guard as he detains people as part of the “Rid the Streets Of Drinkers and Youth” operation on a main road in Las Pinas city, metro Manila, Philippines June 1, 2016. (Photo by Romeo Ranoco/Reuters)

Mounted cop in action on Tremont Street in Boston, Massachusetts, 1920 – 1929 (approximate). (Photo by Leslie Jones)

A member of the Fuerza Civil (Civil Force) police unit takes part in a simulated crime situation during a media presentation to show the police model that the federal government wants for the rest of the country, at the police academy in Monterrey December 17, 2014. Fuerza Civil, a tactical team of the police unit trained by the army, was created by the Nuevo Leon government in 2011 to curb down corruption and infiltration by drug gangs in the police corps, local media reported. Promising a new law to stop the infiltration of local governments by organized crime, President Enrique Pena Nieto pledged to reform the penal system and send an proposal to Congress to unify multi-layered police forces in Mexico's 31 states. (Photo by Daniel Becerril/Reuters)

A view of the Hazelwood Power Station across the cooling pondage at sunrise on March 21, 2012 in Melbourne, Australia. The brown coal fueled power station, located in Latrobe Valley is the oldest in Victoria and provides the state nearly 25% of its energy. In 2005 Hazelwood was labeled Australia's least carbon efficient power station by WWF Australia and continues to be a target of issue of environmentalist groups. (Photo by Hamish Blair/Getty Images)

A Soyuz capsule carrying International Space Station (ISS) crew members U.S. astronaut Scott Kelly, Russian cosmonauts Sergei Volkov and Mikhail Korniyenko descends beneath a parachute near the town of Dzhezkazgan (Zhezkazgan), Kazakhstan, March 2, 2016. (Photo by Kirill Kudryavtsev/Reuters)