The Venus Space program was a space-shuttle mission of the Europa Space Agency. Beginning in 1969 they designed a model with early computers but it did not go too well. In 1973 a full-scale Venus 2 shuttle was made. When it took off, the craft surpassed the S.5’s height record but upon re-entry it burned up, killing the three astronauts inside. Soon after, the ESA gave up space shuttle design until the late 1970s.