Riding the rocket: A 53-year-old Union Park favorite will soon blast off with a new look

The Union Park Rocket Slide is almost ready to blast off.

The beloved 53-year-old slide, which closed for repairs and safety upgrades last year, was originally slated to reopen sometime this summer.

As the a nearly $582,000 project progressed , the city realized work likely wouldn't wrap till the fall. Luckily for rocket riders, the Des Moines Parks and Recreation Department is ahead of schedule.

The newly renovated Astro City playground could be open by the end of the week.

The biggest change? The red Rocket Slide will be replaced with a safer, stainless steel version because "no one" is making custom fiberglass slides anymore, said Parks Planner Lee Wheelock. He thinks the metallic color will be reminiscent enough of space age design to fit in with the rest of the playground.

"It'll still be fun. Kids will still enjoy it," Wheelock said.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony is tentatively planned for July 31 at noon. In the meantime, the parks department is overseeing the finishing touches.

A replacement for one of the smaller slides has already been installed. The rubber-tile surface was completed last week, and custom-made benches with quotes from pioneers in space exploration will be delivered soon. Panels around the park telling the history of the park and the Space Race in the 1960s are also on the way.

"We were very careful to get it back almost identical to what we took down," Wheelock added. "The average park-goer will not notice the difference, except for the main slide."

Berlin-based company built the Rocket Slide's replacement

Installed on July 23, 1971, Astro City is a 107 feet long and 32 feet high, weighing nearly 7 tons. It cost the city $6,200, which today would be around $42,500.

The playground has long been a favorite of neighborhood children now for more than five decades , and as a result it has undergone many renovations and even an attempt to tear it down. It survived a small fire last year .

"It's definitely Des Moines Parks' oldest playground, by a long shot," Wheelock said, guessing that the next oldest owned by the city was made in 2004 or 2005. "This one, the city has decided, by popular demand, to keep and to keep refurbishing."

But Astro City still needs occasional improvements if it's going to keep up with current safety standards. Renovations made over the last year included revamping the nonslip deck, making the ramp and stairs less steep and repainting the structure.

The city also took on the challenge of making the wraparound Rocket Slide safer.

"The original red fiberglass slide that curled around the rocket was too steep for playground code," Wheelock explained. "And you can't change a slide's steepness."

The city needed a longer slide. Wheelock said they reached out to several playground manufactures, and every single one declined. No one wanted to make a product to be put on somebody else's equipment — especially something as old as Astro City.

The Grinnel-based company that made the Rocket Slide is long gone, though the company that bought their name, Miracle Playground Company, is still in business. They ended up selling the city an exact replacement for the playground's smaller, blue plastic slide and a new climber.

But Wheelock was still on the hunt for a new Rocket Slide.

His search brought him to Germany. Back in Des Moines, the city's Parks and Recreation Department had the whole playground 3D-scanned so the Berlin-based company could design a slide that would fit perfectly without ever seeing the playgound.

Apart from the metallic color and more rounded shape, the new Rocket Slide is also self-supporting since there was no way to wind a new slide around the center pole.

"It doesn't look historically accurate, which I lament," Wheelock said, "but it's a lot safer."

Addison Lathers covers growth and development for the Des Moines metro. Reach her at 608-931-1761 or alathers@registermedia.com, and follow her on X at @addisonlathers.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Riding the rocket: A 53-year-old Union Park favorite will soon blast off with a new look