In November 2014, a strange-looking little spider of a spacecraft caught the world's attention. It may have been one of the oddest-looking pioneers of all time, resembling a mini-refrigerator attached to an insect's legs. The spacecraft, christened Philae, electrified both die-hard space fans and casual observers despite its alien appearance. It made the first-ever soft landing on the face of a comet.

Philae actually made soft landings, as it “bounced” twice on the comet's surface after its landing harpoons did not deploy as planned. Eventually it settled down in its final resting spot, a craggy, dark region called Abydos. Here it delivered another surprise when it “reawakened” seven months after a lack of solar power put it into hibernation.

For some, one of the largest surprises was the identity of people who built Philae and the Rosetta orbiter that delivered it to the comet. While those casually in touch with space news focused on the mission's dramatic twists and turns, dedicated space-watchers recognized it as a historic mission for one oft-overlooked group—the European Space Agency (ESA).

How did the ESA develop into an organization with an impressive track record in deep-space exploration, its own dedicated launcher, and a longstanding human spaceflight program? The short and somewhat unexpected answer simply has a lot to do with particle physics, but the longer answer takes us back more than 50 years.

A vision of space for Europe: The beginnings

Well before Rosetta and Philae, other names immediately spring to mind when discussing European space history: ESRO, ELDO, Europa, Ariane, Spacelab, Merbold, Giotto, Columbus, Cassini-Huygens, Ulysses, Herschel, Planck, even Hubble. ESA, which celebrated the 50th anniversary of its origins in 2014, possesses a rich heritage.

John Krige's book, Fifty Years of European Cooperation in Space, examines the nascent beginnings of ESA. Krige describes how the organization’s “founding fathers” were international collaborators who had previously played a role in establishing CERN, Europe's center for nuclear physics, in 1954. That initiative provided a successful model for how the countries of Europe could collectively build something that none of them could manage individually.

The first talks regarding the ESA took place against the backdrop of the growing space rivalry between the United States and Soviet Union, which had burst onto the world's stage with the successful Sputnik mission in October 1957. “When Sputnik was launched... European governments were spectators to a race for technological supremacy and prestige, and in no position to enter the competition on anything like an equal footing,” Krige wrote.

Enter Pierre Auger of France and Edoardo Amaldi of Italy, who were key figures in these early discussions. Auger and Amaldi both had backgrounds in physics, not space, but each had seen the CERN model achieve success as it promoted scientific research in a non-competitive, non-military environment. Krige suggested that “'Atom smashers' were thus a perfect platform around which European governments could pool their resources without triggering national rivalries, and in doing so hope to close the gap that had opened up between them and the United States.” According to the author, Auger and Amaldi hoped that Europe could repeat the CERN model and “that what had been done for high-energy physics could also be done for space research.”

At the start, the Europeans wouldn’t even necessarily need their own launcher. In March 1959 at an International Committee for Space Research (COSPAR) meeting held at The Hague, an American delegate had also reached out to say NASA would help “launch suitable experiments proposed by scientists from other countries.”

By 1959, the effort took on a sense of urgency. Auger and Amaldi were concerned that the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) Science Committee was thinking of developing a satellite to put Europe in space. Krige's book states that both scientists “[balked] at the prospect of having European space research located in an [organization] essentially dedicated to military goals, an [organization] which would impose layers of bureaucracy and secrecy on any space science effort.”

Soon, Auger and Amaldi were joined by other science-minded individuals, including Jan Bannier and Henk van de Hulst of the Netherlands, Jan Willems of Belgium, Alexander Hocker of West Germany, and Sir Harrie Massey of the United Kingdom. “They called on their network of scientific leaders in 10 European countries and organized a meeting to see what could be done to create a ‘civilian’ space agency, dedicated entirely to research,” said ESA's Carl Walker, the agency's corporate editor.

In 1960, a European Space Research Study Group (Groupe d'etudes European pour la collaboration dans le domaine des recherches spatiales, or GEERS) was set up with Massey as president and Auger as secretary; Luigi Broglio of Italy, Marcel Golay of Switzerland, and Lamek Hulthen of Sweden served as vice-chairs. GEERS moved away from the idea of establishing one agency for space sciences and instead proposed setting up two organizations: one for space science research and one to develop European launch vehicles.

“Sir Harrie Massey is quoted as saying, 'We don’t want to set up a European NASA,'” Walker told Ars. “The general feeling was that if the same agency had financial responsibility for both launchers and space, one would swamp the other, and scientists would lose control of their programs.”

Europe’s best scientific minds thus continued on in this spirit. As Krige wrote, “Thus the seeds were sown for Europe to enter space with two [organizations].” These became the European Space Research Organization (ESRO) and the European launcher Development Organisation (ELDO). By early 1964, both the ELDO Convention and the ESRO Convention had entered into force.

Organizational milestones and overcoming adversity

While the Americans (and the Soviets) were busy racing to the Moon during the 1960s and early 1970s, the Europeans were making strides in establishing their own payloads, scientific objectives, and launch vehicles. “I think more important than specific events or key missions in the European space story is perhaps a 'whole period' between 1968 and 1971,” Walker said. “This period is important because it was when the European space agencies came of age. Although ESRO was establishing itself as a leader in space exploration, ELDO was dealing with technological problems, cost overruns, and political disputes. There were some very brave and tough decisions made in the late 1960s and early 1970s, trying to resolve these issues.”

ESRO enjoyed its first big success in 1968 with the launch of ESRO 2B, an astronomy survey orbiter that was delivered to orbit utilizing a Scout rocket from the Western Test Range in California. But the establishment of a European launch vehicle, which was eventually named Europa, didn't progress as hoped. Several nations collaborated on the vehicle, with the United Kingdom developing the first stage (based on the “Blue Streak” ballistic missile), France the second stage, and Germany the third. Europa experienced many growing pains, cost overruns, and a lack of focus. Successive rocket stage failures eventually doomed the program.

Concurrently, the seeds were being sown for the establishment of ESA. There were two “package deals” made, one in late 1971 and one in late 1972. The first one agreed upon by the ESRO Council, according to Walker, was critical in that it discussed how to secure the future of ESRO and created a template for the successful European programs that would follow. The second “package deal,” which came about at the sixth European Space Council (ESC) meeting in Brussels, Belgium, paved the way for the creation of the European Space Agency. It was soon formally established in 1975.

As part of this package deal, ELDO would be shut down; France would bear the brunt of funding a new launch vehicle program, the LIIIS (Lanceur à Trois Etages de Substitution; this would later be called Ariane, the French name for the Greek goddess Ariadne). Germany would fund Spacelab, which rose from the ashes of a proposed “space tug” collaboration between the United States and Europe. The modular lab, which would be installed in the US Space Shuttle's cargo bay, was meant to be launched aboard the shuttle by 1980. According to ESA's website, “Europe agreed to deliver free of charge the Engineering Model and the first Flight Unit, plus ground support equipment, in return for a shared first mission.”

In particular, the creation of Spacelab had a significant consequence: it would necessitate that Europe develop its own astronaut corps.