ELDO
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Launcher_Development_OrganisationESRO
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Space_Research_OrganisationESA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Space_AgencyArianespace
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArianespaceCNES
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNESDiamant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DiamantBlack Arrow
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_ArrowBlue Streak
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Streak_(missile)
Europa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_(rocket)
San Marco (Italy SCOUT space program)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Marco_programme...
Blue streak was created by De Havilland with Convair's help, and thus was Atlas little brother with the same balloon tanks but only two engines and as an IRBM.
It was canned by the British military in April 1960 for Skybolt ALBMs and later, Polaris SLBMs.
The British who de facto were the third country in the world with a large and powerful rocket, did not wanted it to go to waste.
They proposed it to the Commonwealth's Canada and Australia - they refused.
They then asked the French, and the answer was positive - except as an European project. And thus ELDO was born.
ESRO history was largely independant.
By 1973 Blue Streak had evolved into Europa II with a French second stage and a Germand stage 3 and a Belgian fairing (AFAIK) - but the whole thing was a disorganized quagmire and finally collapsed after the F11 flight failure late 1971... in Kourou.
Europa was dead and Ariane was born on its ashes. Europa II with Blue Streak was to evolve into Europa IIIB with Vikings and LH2 high-risk stage 2. But the french took the first stage, mated it with lower risk upper stages (also Vikings), creating L3S - later Ariane 1 to 44L.
Late July 1973 the Europeans barely funded a package made of very complicated tradeoffs between Spacelab (for Germany) Ariane (for the French) and Marots (navigation sats fo Britain)
ELDO and ESRO remains were then wrapped up into ESA, born 1975.
Arianespace was created in 1980 when it became painfully obvious that ESA and CNES science and telecom satellites were too few to feed Ariane 1 flight manifest past the test flights. Since ESA members were penny pinching Ariane science payloads and commercial flights, the French fast-moved into the commercial market - and Arianespace was born, originally called Transpace.
Even before those events, a major turning point was 1977 when Ariane (not Arianespace yet) clinched one Intelsat VI launch against Atlas Centaur. Having not flown yet Ariane should never had a chance against the proven Atlas Centaur.
What helped Ariane was the Shuttle commercial siliness that was starting to be felt. Atlas was slowly but surely being screwed in favor of the coming Shuttle, its production line was slowing down and the unit price was rising. Once Ariane clinched that Intelsat VI contract, it was more or less unstopable - although it took the Challenger disaster to be the final nail into the Commercial Shuttle pipe dream.
By 1986 Delta and Atlas production line had grounded to a standstill.
Ariane however had its share of crippling and irritating failures
- destructive pogo on the second flight, May 1980. Never happened again.
- five HM-7s in a row (1982, 1985, 1986, 1994 twice) - LOX/LH2 third stage was hard-learning.
- the 1985 failure was in front of French President François Mitterrand, so it hurt Arianespace teams prides and egos tremendously - although Tonton Mitterrand was pretty leniant with the devastated Kourou teams.
- and the goddam cloth of doom in 1990. By yours truly.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4085/1