The idea of a space mission for stellar activity and seismology was conceived in France 1981-2 and underwent a series of developments leading to the EVRIS experiment as a passenger experiment on Mars96. Modified versions of EVRIS were proposed for other missions including SOHO, and it was eventually launched on Mars96 and immediately lost when Mars96 failed. In parallel more ambitious and larger missions were proposed to ESA including PRISMA, STARS and Eddington. CoRoT was originally conceived as a follow up mission to EVRIS but has matured into the present CNES/International project that is the subject of this volume. Initially these missions were devoted to stellar seismology and activity, but were expanded to incorporate searching for planets. The Eddington mission was initially selected by ESA in 2000 with reserve status, then fully approved in 2002, but withdrawn from the ESA programme in 2004, as part of the programme reduction needed to solve the financial problems of ESA's Science Programme. The small Danish seismology mission MONS was approved in 2002 but also subsequently cancelled, whereas the Canadian microsatellite mission MOST was proposed in 1997, successfully launched in 2003 and is currently collecting data.