Like most other launcher systems of the time, even the Proton or mighty N-1, the Europa rocket had its origins in a ballistic missile--Blue Streak, developed as an IRBM comparable to the American Thor, but built all in Britain. The ballistic missile project was cancelled in 1960 due to problems in siting the vulnerable kerolox missiles, but again like its American counterpart, it had a long second life in the launcher business. In 1964, an agreement was signed, primarily involving Germany and France, to develop a European satellite launcher in direct competition with the Soviet Union and the United States. The Europa development program was long and troubled, but Blue Streak soldiered on, performing flawlessly through over 20 development flights before the Europa 4 design finally entered service in 1977. Almost immediately, the limited performance of the existing design began to manifest itself, though the advantageous positioning of the French Guianese launch site and the limited official manifest (as the Europeans lacked the significant governmental space program of the United States) made it attractive to the commercial space companies that were just beginning to emerge...
--...United in the Heavens: Europe in the Space Age
From at least the mid-1970s, space station studies had considered using foreign-designed and -built modules, or at least foreign astronauts and experiments. The cost and political aspects of outsourcing (as it would now be called) some construction and research activity were too obvious to ignore, and at the time space was becoming increasingly a tool for international politics rather than just international competition. The ASTP in 1975 had marked a new era in detente, and by the end of the decade cosmonauts from countries aligned with or at least friendly to the Soviet Union were routinely being flown to Mir. As a result, studies of European and Japanese cooperation were becoming increasingly common as the decade proceeded, and by 1978 there had been extensive contact between the United States, Europe, and Japan about joint activities on Skylab II, which was just about to launch. This period of contact culminated in the launch of Europe's first non-Communist astronaut, Harry Archer, in 1981 to Skylab II. This news, while trumpeted in Europe at the time, was shortly overshadowed by the Soviet moon landing. However, the stage was set for much more substantive cooperation...
--Touching the Sky: History of Human Space Flight
...the design of NASA spacesuits was also modified at this time. The A7L series had been designed for moonwalking. Now that NASA was moving towards prolonged operations in low Earth orbit, and towards a culture of greater cost-consciousness, the suitability of this series for operation in LEO was being seriously assessed. The A7L was heavy (weighing as much as 245 pounds fully loaded), required custom-fitting to each astronaut, and had certain features that were simply unnecessary in Earth orbit operations. A new design could be cheaper and more effective, attractive to a newly-lean organization. As a result, design contracts were let and on January 29th, 1975 NASA announced that Hamilton Sundstrand had won a contract to design and build a new series of space suits, the S1H...
--Touching the Sky: History of Human Space Flight
