Space Europe has its own history, less often told than that of the two superpowers: an institutional and industrial construction, from the ELDO and ESRO of the 1960s to ESA, from the first scientific cooperations to the successes of the European launchers and the great application programmes.
Its literature mixes institutional assessments, economic and industrial studies, programme histories and the reflections of its own actors. It holds particular value for the historian: much of it was written while space Europe was being invented.