A general presentation of ESA. The whole history of European Space, starting from the ideas of Edoardo Amaldi and Pierre Auger who are the fathers of European Space adventure; the birth of ESRO and ELDO and later of ESA; ESA's organisation, establishments and budget; the fundamental role of the Science Programme with its succesful missions (ESRO-2, Exosat, Hipparcos, Ulysses, Hubble, ISO,Giotto) and future ones (Cluster, Soho, Rosetta, Huygens); the launcher programme Ariane; ESA's contribution to Euroepan telecommunications with ECS,OTS,Marecs, Olympus, ARTES); the remote sensing programme (ERS, Meteosat, MSG); from Spacelab and Eureca to the foreseen contribution to the ISS; technology transfer for the benefit of European citizens.