  Trapping and cooling techniques have become very important for many
fundamental experiments in atomic physics. When applied to highly charged ions
confined in Penning traps, these procedures are very effective for testing
quantum electrodynamics in extreme electromagnetic fields produced by heavy
highly charged ions such as uranium U$^{91+}$. In addition, fundamental
constants or nuclear ground state properties can be determined with high
accuracy in these simple systems. Finally, by studying a single trapped
radioactive ion, its nuclear decay can be studied in detail by observing the
disappearance of the signal of the mother and the appearance of that of the
daughter isotope. Such experiments on highly charged ions at extremely low
energy will become possible by the HITRAP facility which is currently being
built up at GSI. Also the future Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research
(FAIR) will be briefly described which is expected to be operational by 2014.
