English: Gyrostat, Gyroscope Testing Device for Rockets, 1929. (Note: the outer pipe is incomplete.) NASM-A19800429000_CU01

Original captions:

"This is probably the earliest extant gyroscopic test device for a liquid-fuel rocket. A gyrostat is a means of testing or simulating gyroscopic control. American rocket pioneer Robert Goddard's bicycle gyrostat was a stationary device to test the gyro principle and was evidently operated (made to revolve) with a crude form of rocket or air-breathing reaction motor. According to his diary of for 5 January 1929, he: "…planned on bicycle-wheel gyrostat in afternoon...." On 7 January he: "got bicycle wheel and piping and sawed four notches in bicycle wheel, in afternoon.…" Instead of a flywheel he used a wooden bicycle wheel. He experimented with it from January to at least February 1929 as part of his attempt to develop gyroscopic control for his latest rocket, which was launched in summer 1929."

"25 inch bicycle wheel, with wooden rim and no tire, attached to a wood frame; with switches and electric coil; steel disc, 22in. in diameter, attached to wheel; frame consisting of 7 pieces of wood, each stick 1 x 1.25in., bolted to disc and set at equi-distances from each other except for two sticks which are connected to a wood board, 16 x 6.25in. and 0.75in. thick; a 0.75in. steel plumbing pipe, threaded at both ends, is bent around three of the sticks and secured to the sticks by wires through holes; on the board is clamped a cylinder with black insulated electrical wires and rods leading it; mostly the rods protrude from the back of the cylinder and also lead to spring devices; at the front end of the cylinder is screwed a small AC spark plug, with an open pipe protruding from under the plug; some of the wires leading from the cylinder are attached to a rheostat type electrical switch mounted on one of the pieces of adjoining wood; two of the parts of the mechanism on the cylinder appear to be made of lids from old tobacco or chewing tobacco cans and have the words, "Satisfaction Guaranteed - Will Not Bite Your Tongue" stamped on them."