Beautiful, exotic Tijuana—city of passion and mystery. My first investigative trip to Mexico’s fourth-largest city was in the fall of 2003, when I attended Day of the Dead festivities there and went undercover in the persona of a terminally ill cancer patient to test a fortuneteller and to search for the bogus curative, Laetrile (Nickell 2004). I returned in mid-May 2009 as a side jaunt to an extensive California trip (in which I lectured, received an award [see Hammer 2009], and went on an expedition into Bigfoot Country). This time in Tijuana, accompanied as before by Vaughn Rees, I looked into the magic of Náhuatl dances, an Olmec mystery, and the case of a dubious folk saint.

Náhuatl Dance Magic

In ancient Mesoamerica, the indigenistas used music and dance in religious ceremonies. Apparently the first expressly religious practices came from the Olmecs of the Gulf Coast, who flourished from about 1200 to 400 bc only to subsequently disappear. Olmec means “rubber people” in the ancient language known as Náhuatl (Jones and Molyneaux 2004, 91–92, 131, 133).

Náhuatl was the language of the later Aztecs and Toltecs, and it was spread by them throughout ancient Mesoamerica. It belongs to the same family of languages as Shoshonean, which is well represented among Native Americans of the United States. Significantly,

This linguistic tie supports the old tradition that the Aztecs came from the north and were late arrivals in the Valley of Mexico. Like all American Indians, the Aztecs were descended from peoples who probably crossed from Siberia to Alaska by traversing the Bering Strait. A number of relatively pure-blooded Aztecs still live in central Mexico. They are short, with round heads, dark skin, and straight black hair. Typical of American Indians, they do not differ much from the Indians of Arizona and New Mexico. (Collier’s Encyclopedia 1993, s.v. “Aztecs”)

Today, such “Aztecs”—or at least the linguistically definable Native Americans who continue to speak Náhuatl and who are known as the Nahua—represent between 800,000 and 1.5 million inhabitants of central and western Mexico (“Náhuatl” 2009; Jones and Molyneaux 2004, 131). It was such a family that Vaughn Rees and I happily encountered at the plaza on Avenida Revolucion (“Revolution Avenue”) in Tijuana. There, in native dress, they pranced and whirled in elaborate folk dances, ceremonial expressions of their cultural mythology (see figures 1 and 2).

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

The Náhuatl dances were originally created to please the gods. The dances can be seen as meditation, even prayer, in motion. The movements (expressing specific meanings) include serpent-like actions (to denote fertility), zig-zag steps (water), steps (fire), squatting to the ground (the earth and crops), and twirling in the air (the soul). “The individual dancers also work together to become one entity and reach the goal of complete attentiveness. The dancers unite to create a corporal expression to worship and communicate with their gods as they are expressed in nature” (Danza 2009).

Although today the Náhuatl religion is increasingly influenced by Catholicism (“Náhuatl” 2009), some dedicated dancers attempt to keep alive a tradition with which we can connect at the human level. I feel privileged to have been able to step back, as it were, into an earlier, more magical time, and even wonder again, with the poet Yeats: When the two become one, “how can we know the dancer from the dance?”

Olmec Mystery

At first thought, Tijuana has little to do with the Olmecs, who lived in the rich lowlands of Mexico’s Gulf Coast and created a great civilization that was at its height between 800 and 500 bc. Several farming villages grew into something more, notes Kenneth L. Feder (1996, 410), archaeologist and CSI fellow:

They became ceremonial centers where a unique constellation of art motifs and architectural patterns are seen. The motifs and patterns, called Olmec, include several common artistic and architectural elements: depictions of a half-human, half-jaguar god, the use of jade, iron ore mirrors, large earthen platforms, earthen pyramids, and huge basalt boulders carved into the likeness of human heads....

Fig. 3

It was one such giant head—one of at least seventeen known—that I recognized immediately on a Tijuana sidewalk (see figure 3). Some archaeologists have suggested that the disembodied, helmeted heads represented players of a sacred Olmec ball game (involving a heavy ball of indigenous rubber). Supposedly, these players lost, and as a consequence were decapitated (The World’s 1978, 264–265; “Olmec” 2009).

However, that notion seems fanciful, even trivial, in light of the huge amount of effort necessary to transport and carve the colossal basalt blocks. The prevailing view is that the heads represent Olmec chiefs (Feder 1996, 410). Indeed, a bronze plaque on the Tijuana monument refers to the colossal Olmec head as El Rey (“The King”).

“Ancient astronaut” theorists like Erich von Däniken have exaggerated the difficulty of moving and shaping the stones. In his one-time international best-seller Chariots of the Gods? and other books, von Däniken suggests that space aliens visited Earth in the remote past, mated with humans to produce Homo sapiens, and helped create many of antiquity’s greatest works, such as the pyramids of Egypt and the stone statues on Easter Island. In his writings von Däniken again and again misrepresents evidence to fit his “theory” (Nickell 1995, 186–189).

He writes of the Olmecs that “their beautifully helmeted giant skulls” (sic) can be “admired only on the sites where they were found, for they will never be on show in a museum” (von Däniken 1971, 93). Why? “No bridge in the country could stand their weight,” he asserts. “We can move smaller ‘monoliths’ weighing up to fifty tons with our modern lifting appliances and loaders, but when it comes to hundred-tonners like these our technology breaks down.”

In fact, von Däniken has doubled or quadrupled the actual weight of the heads. Sources place the largest ones in the twenty-five- to fifty-five-ton range (“Olmec” 2009). The boulders of basalt (a dark volcanic rock) used for the heads came from the Tuxtlas Mountains, some forty to sixty miles from the Olmec centers (Whitaker 1951, 51). States Feder (1996, 410), “The movement of this stone over such a great distance is another indicator of the ability of the Olmec chiefs to mobilize and manage the labor of a great mass of people.” The Olmecs may have dragged the boulders and floated them on large balsa rafts along coastal waters (“Olmec” 2009). They were later carved using “stone implements with much skill” (Whitaker 1951, 51).

Not only are some of the giant heads found in museums, but one was transported thousands of miles for a special exhibition of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Whitaker 1951, 51). In Tijuana, the great Olmec head provides further silent testimony against the falsehoods of the glib Erich von Däniken and his ilk.

Murderer-“Saint”

In Catholicism, certain deceased persons are officially recognized as saints, who are held to be in the glory of God in heaven and whose holiness is attested through miracles (Schreck 1984, 153–156). Among the rank-and-file faithful, however, there are also a number of popular, unofficial saints—like Argentina’s controversial “Evita” (Eva Peron, wife of dictator Juan Peron), who is reviled by anti-Peronists but sought for canonization by others crediting her with the requisite miracles (Nickell 2006, 20).

One such folk saint in northwestern Mexico, as well as now the southwestern United States, is known as Juan Soldado (“Soldier John”), the name given by his devotees to Juan Castillo Morales, from southern Mexico. In 1938 at the age of twenty-four, he was in Tijuana, serving as a private in the Mexican army (see figure 4).

Late on February 13, an eight-year-old Tijuana girl, Olga Camacho, was sent by her mother to the corner grocery for meat. When she failed to return, an all-night search for her was conducted by citizens and authorities. It culminated at noon with the discovery of the child’s raped and nearly decapitated body in an abandoned building not far from the police station. The neighbor who found her had been convinced Olga would be found safe, but that woman subsequently claimed she was directed to the site by “a vision” of the Virgin Mary (Vanderwood 2004, 5–6).

Tijuana smoldered with anger, a lynch mob was formed, and finally tensions exploded. The police station and municipal hall were torched, and fire trucks answering calls had their hoses slashed with machetes. Eventually soldiers fired on the crowd, killing one and wounding several. Newspapers dubbed that day, February 15, “Bloody Tuesday.”

However, by February 17, just over three days after the discovery of little Olga’s body, Juan Castillo Morales had been accused of the crime, taken into custody, turned over to the army, sentenced to death following a twelve-hour court martial, and transported to the municipal cemetery where he was executed. He was dispatched by a method known as Ley Fuga (“flight law”) in which he was ordered to flee for his life, then cut down by a firing squad. He was badly wounded, and an officer finally administered the coup de grace (Maher 1997; “Juan” 2009; Vanderwood 2004, 49–50).

How was Juan Castillo Morales transformed from child-rapist and murderer into “Juan Soldado” the popular saint? A rumor circulated that the little girl was actually killed by an army officer who framed Juan for the atrocity. Still later, more conspiracy theories were advanced (Maher 1997; “Juan” 2009). Meanwhile, there were unverified reports of “ghostly voices” near Juan’s burial site. As well, some spoke of “blood seeping from his grave” (“Juan” 2009) or, alternately, claimed “that a rock by the spot where he fell kept spouting blood, calling attention to his innocence” (Maher 1997) or that blood oozed “through the rocks laid [ritualistically] at the grave site” (Vanderwood 2004, 64). Such variants (as folklorists call differing versions), together with the common folk motifs (or story elements),1 are indicative of the folkloric process at work in the evolving Juan Soldado legend. (If real blood was actually “seeping up through the loosely packed soil” of Morales’s shallow grave—his coffin was reportedly “just a foot or so below the surface”—it was attributable to decomposition gases forcing blood and tissue upward [Vanderwood 2004, 64, 190]. More simply, after a rain, a rock containing red ocher—red iron oxide—could have given the appearance of blood.)

Fig. 4

In time, little shrines were built at the supposed execution and burial sites, as well as elsewhere in the area (see figure 4). Votive candles, cards, and other religious items devoted to Juan Soldado are now sold throughout the borderlands. Many people appeal to his spirit before attempting to enter the United States illegally: “Juan Soldado, ayúdame a cruzar” (“Soldier John, help me across”). Others pray to him for help with health problems, criminal troubles, and family matters (“Juan” 2009). Many attest to “miracles” he produced on their behalf. Although June 24, Mexico’s El Día de San Juan (“The day of Saint John”), actually celebrates John the Baptist whose feast day it is, cultists have appropriated it for their San Juan, Juan Soldado, and the cemetery is filled with believers and mariachis (Maher 1997).

The Catholic Church, on the other hand, understandably denies the sanctity of Juan Soldado. Before Olga’s body was discovered, Juan Castillo Morales was seen loitering in the area. He was known to police as one who reportedly made sexual overtures to girls. His common-law wife came forward to say he had returned home very late, disheveled, and spattered with blood, whereupon he broke down and confessed to the crime. Newspaper reporters invited to interview him found him unrepentant, even nonchalant. A Los Angeles paper headlined its report, “Smiling Mexican Private tells Examiner, ‘Yes I did it’” (Vanderwood 2004, 14).

If the evidence is correct and Juan indeed represents depravity rather than sanctity, how ironic is his transformation to solider-saint and even more so his purported ability to work “miracles” seemingly as real as those of any officially sanctioned saint.

Acknowledgments

In addition to Vaughn Rees, without whose tireless assistance this article would not have been possible, I wish to thank CFI librarian Lisa Nolan and Director of CFI Libraries Timothy Binga for their considerable help with research, and the entire staff of the Skeptical Inquirer for their continuing professional assistance.

Note

1. See, for example, Thompson (1955, 403–458), including motifs “The unquiet grave” (E410), “Revenant as blood” (E422.1.11.5), “Ineradicable bloodstain after bloody tragedy” (E422.1.11.5.1), and so on.

References

Danza, Azteca: Step by step. 2009. Available online at http://danzaazteca.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/
why-did-aztecs-dance/; accessed August 19, 2009.

Feder, Kenneth L. 1996. The Past in Perspective: An Introduction to Human Prehistory. Mountain View, California: Mayfield Publishing Co.

Hammer, Owen. 2009. Third annual IIG awards: Mythbusters and Nickell honored, Ben Stein lampooned. Skeptical Inquirer 33(5) (September/
October): 11–12.

Jones, David M., and Brian L. Molyneaux. 2004. Mythology of the American Nations. London: Hermes House.

Juan Soldado. 2009. Wikipedia. Available online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Soldado; accessed May 25, 2009.

Maher, Patrick. 1997. After they shot Juan. San Diego Reader, December 4. (Refurbished January 30, 2008. Available online at http://www.sandiego
reader.com/news/2008/jan/30/after-they-shot-juan/; accessed May 25, 2009.)

Náhuatl religion. 2009. Available online at http://
www.bookrags.com/research/nahuatl-religion-eorl-09; accessed August 19, 2009.

Nickell, Joe. 2004. Mythical Mexico. Skeptical Inquirer 28(4) (July/August): 11–15.

———. 2006. Argentina mysteries. Skeptical Inquirer 30(2) (March/April): 19–22.

Nutini, Hugo G., and John M. Roberts. 1993. Bloodsucking Witchcraft: An Epistemological Study of Anthropomorphic Supernaturalism in Rural Tlaxcala. Tucson: U of Arizona Press.

Olmec. 2009. Wikipedia. Available online at http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmec; accessed August 18, 2009.

Thiering, Barry, and Edgar Castle, eds. 1972. Some Trust in Chariots. Toronto: Popular Library.

Thompson. Stith. 1955. Motif-Index of Folk Literature, rev. ed., vol. 2 of 6 vols. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Vanderwood, Paul. 2004. Juan Soldado: Rapist, Murderer, Martyr, Saint. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.

Von Däniken, Erich. 1971. Chariots of the Gods? London: Corgi.

Whitaker, Gordon. 1951. The spaceman in the tree. In Thiering and Castle 1972, 40–60.

The World’s Last Mysteries. 1978. Pleasantville, N.Y.: The Reader’s Digest Association.

In his recent book Life After Death: The Evidence (2009), conservative author Dinesh D’Souza provides several arguments for evidence of life after death, some of which I had not heard before. Here I will give a short summary with some responses.

Near-Death Experiences

D’Souza claims that near-death experiences (NDE) suggest that consciousness can outlive the breakdown of the body, and they cannot be explained as the product of dying brains. The same experiences, which have all the characteristics of hallucinations caused by oxygen deprivation, can be found in situations in which a subject is not near death. Despite thousands of cases, no one has ever come back from an NDE with information that could not have been in their heads originally.

Past-Life Memories

D’Souza is properly skeptical of the work of the late Ian Stevenson, psychiatrist and professor at the University of Virginia. Stevenson collected thousands of cases of children recalling details from past lives, mostly in India and other cultures that believe in reincarnation. Independent investigations indicated that the children could have known about the people they claimed to be in a previous life, who were usually from the same or nearby villages.

Why would children make up such stories? Many were motivated to improve their status in society, for example, to show they belong in a higher caste. Or they desired to become religious celebrities, a common occurrence in India, D’Souza points out, for children who appear especially anointed. Independent analyses of Stevenson’s data by experts did not find a single case with convincing evidence of reincarnation.

Modern Physics

D’Souza claims that modern physics shows that matter exists that is “radically different from any matter we are familiar with.” I assume he is referring to the so-called “dark matter” and “dark energy.” While it is true that we do not yet know their exact natures, they exhibit those properties of inertia and gravitation that define what we * mean by “matter” and exhibit nothing that might be called “spiritual.” Furthermore, plausible candidates exist for these forms of matter within the current standard models of physics and cosmology.

Cosmology

D’Souza mentions the possibility suggested by modern cosmology that multiple universes exist that could have different natural laws than ours—and proposes that perhaps we can live beyond death in one of those realms. While these universes may have different laws, they are still made of matter and therefore none is a candidate for a world of pure spirit.

Modern Biology

D’Souza claims that modern biology shows that the “evolutionary transition from matter to mind does not seem random or accidental but built into the script of nature.” He wishfully interprets this as a transition from material to immaterial. First, this view is far from the mainstream of modern biology, and it is held by a small minority of biologists who allow their religious faith to intrude on their science. Second, even if they are right about some previously unrecognized teleological principle in action, there is no basis for concluding that it is not purely material.

Neuroscience

D’Souza claims that neuroscience has shown that the “mind cannot be reduced to the brain and materialism is at a dead end.” He has misinformed his readers about the facts. The number of active neuroscientists today who are mind-body dualists probably can be counted on the fingers of one hand. He claims that consciousness and free will seem to operate outside the domain of objective science. In fact, considerable research exists suggesting exactly the opposite conclusion. Models of purely material consciousness have reached the state where they are being tested in the laboratory with a whole array of wonderful new tools. These models are already finding practical applications in helping people with brain disorders.

Morality

D’Souza argues, “morality is best understood under the presupposition that there is cosmic justice beyond the world.” Evolution, he says, cannot explain morality since it is based in selfishness, the opposite of morality. Morality rises above self-interest but not “gene-interest,” as Richard Dawkins famously explained in The Selfish Gene.

D’Souza claims that morality must come from somewhere outside the evolution-dominated material world. But then he tells us that people are moral because they expect to be rewarded in the afterlife. So it’s self-interest after all! Except if you are an atheist and don’t believe in an afterlife, in which case you have no reason to be moral. Thus D’Souza’s model predicts that believers in the afterlife will be far more moral than nonbelievers. What do the data say? They indicate quite the contrary—that atheists are, if anything, somewhat more moral than theists. And unlike theists, their morality does rise above self-interest. Thus D’Souza’s hypothesis is falsified by the data and can hardly be put forth as a case for the existence of an afterlife.

Practical Reason

Finally, D’Souza tries to convince us that belief in the afterlife is good for us and good for society. He claims that these beliefs, in particular those of Christianity, provide the core foundation of everything we hold dear in society: equality, human dignity, democracy, human rights, and even peace and compassion. But he does not show us where in Christianity these values can be found. They are certainly not in the scriptures. They can’t be found in the history of Christianity. In fact, they can be found in societies that predate Christianity. Indeed, one might wonder why they took so long to take hold in our modern society when they have been around for thousands of years. Could the reason be that there was a period of about 1,000 years, from roughly 500 to 1500, when Christianity ruled Europe and much of the progress of previous centuries ground to a halt?

George Anderson is one of the country’s three major “psychic mediums.” He may be less well known than John Edward and James Van Praagh, but like the others he charges the bereaved a small fortune for the opportunity to ostensibly communicate with a departed loved one.

The closest I’ve ever been to Anderson was in October 1999 on the now-defunct MSNBC television show Crosstalk, which devoted an hour to discussing communication with the dead after that night’s premier of Linda Ellerbee’s HBO special Life Afterlife. Anderson was a guest in the network studio, while Ellerbee, a couple others, and I were scattered in various remote locations. During the program, in response to one of my comments, Anderson acknowledged that “skepticism is healthy ....t means you’re thinking.” But I don’t think the following is the sort of “thinking” that he would appreciate becoming the norm.

Several years ago, someone (to protect her identity, I’ll call her “Eve”) had lost her twenty-something-year-old son (I’ll call him “Adam”) in an auto accident and sought out Anderson, who charged her $1,200 to connect with her dearly and tragically departed. Fortunately for us “thinking” folks, she recorded the nearly one-hour session (with—amazingly—Anderson’s concurrence) and thoughtfully provided a copy for my review.

The session begins with Anderson’s announcement that “immediately a male presence comes forward... [pause, then under his breath] and two females follow.” Eve’s body language and verbal feedback help establish the sex of the deceased party with whom she desires communication. But age, unlike sex, presents nearly a hundred possibilities. Anderson: “He claims he passed on young? [Here he pauses due to apparent absence of feedback.] Excuse me, relatively young by today’s standards, yes? That means seventy down.” So, Eve’s son did not cry out: “Mom, I’m here!” or, to Anderson, “My name is Adam. I was killed at age twenty-five in an auto accident.” Instead, Adam decided to play a variation of the children’s games “Hot and Cold” and “20 Questions.” After some inane byplay with Eve (of the sort that occupied most of the session), Anderson continues: “He’s already on the defensive, saying [again], ‘I passed over young by today’s standards,’ but he wasn’t a child.” Anderson has obviously gone fishing: Husband? Son? Father?

At this point, only fifty-five seconds into the fifty-two-minute session, any “thinking” person should recognize that this “communication” simply cannot be genuine. The intact sentences that Anderson claims to relay are so ridiculous (the above example being but one) that I can only shake my head in bewilderment at the gullibility of his supporters.

Still floundering for the nature of their relationship, Anderson continues: “He says he’s your sweetheart, understood? [Pause—apparently not.] But not romantically? [Pause—Eve says, ‘I don’t know.’] I think I have two people; one states he is your sweetheart romantically, yes?” But he had earlier specified one male and two females. This sort of transparent game-playing, and Anderson’s excuses (such as, “He [Adam] said [‘sweetheart’] to be funny”) wastes minute after minute—at more than $20 each.

One needs to listen to the entire recording to appreciate the endless stream of wild guesses and proffered questions that don’t offer any specific information from or about the “next level” of existence.

Anderson’s excruciating attempts to divine the departed’s name continue intermittently until finally resolved at about the half-way point. At thirteen minutes: “He is now telling me his first name is short.” Eve offers a “yes” but no more, and Anderson abandons this attempt. At about sixteen minutes he tries again: “He doesn’t have the most common first name . . . but you can shorten it? [Actually, no.] He showed me six letters, but it’s less than that?” [Eve offers another “yes.”] A bit later: “[The] letter ‘J’—anything to do with him?” Then, “Now why did your son say ‘A, B, C, D’ and he stopped, understood?” He offers the names “Kyle” and “Keith,” both incorrect. He again moves on. At about thirty-seven minutes, after playing more letter games and with more help from Eve: success! (Though certainly not in my book.)

At forty-three minutes into the session, we learn why Anderson (and presumably his cohorts) would still choose to play such games even if they truly possessed their claimed abilities rather than spend the hour providing a treasure trove of information about the great beyond to their grieving, paying (through the nose) clients: “To me, it would be boring as hell if you walked into the room and he said, ‘Hi. I’m her son. My name is [Adam]. I died in a car accident.’ Everything would just be an assembly-line bore. This makes it very challenging...and exciting to work it out.”

And, as if he were being paid by the hour like Anderson, at fifty-two minutes Adam decides to “pull back” and depart the premises, having imparted not one iota of information about the afterlife to his beloved mom, aside from Anderson’s platitudes that he is all right and at peace. But he was thoughtful enough to provide Anderson with some time for a coffee or bathroom break before the next assembly-line client’s arrival at the top of the hour.

There was, however, one sliver of a silver lining in this mephitic affair: Eve, though $1,200 lighter in the pocketbook, is now much richer of mind. She has become a skeptic.

Every time the question of nuclear waste disposal comes up, someone is sure to say, “Why not shoot it into the Sun?” It seems so obvious. The Sun’s a fine big target, and you’ll get there if you shoot straight up. The usual objection is that if a launch rocket failed, we’d get nuclear waste dumped on our heads. No one seems to consider the real objection: the Sun is the most inaccessible destination in our entire solar system.

Moving in Space

Let’s consider some orbital dynamics. If we launch a spacecraft at “escape velocity” (11.2 km/sec), it will never fall back to Earth. As it still shares Earth’s orbital velocity, some 30 km/sec, it remains in orbit around the Sun. It can’t fall into it any more than the Earth can.

A spacecraft launched with more than escape velocity ends up with a residual velocity relative to Earth. If this is directed in the same direction Earth is moving, the spacecraft will enter an elliptical orbit that will take it farther from the Sun. After a little more than a year it will return to Earth’s orbit, but Earth won’t be there. It will have had time to go around a little more than once.

If we direct our spacecraft’s residual velocity against the direction Earth is moving, it will enter an elliptical orbit that will take it closer to the Sun. It will take less than a year to return to Earth’s orbit and, once again, the Earth won’t be there. However, this is a step in the right direction.

The bad news is that to hit the Sun requires reducing the spacecraft’s velocity by nearly all of Earth’s orbital velocity. That is, we have to slow it by 30 km/sec. This is an enormous change in velocity; space probes to the nearer planets make velocity changes of only the order of 4 km/sec.

Since we also have to apply 11.2 km/sec just to get into space, it might seem that we need an acceleration of 41 km/sec to get to the Sun. The good news is that velocities can’t be combined; in space energies are combined. To get from the surface of Earth to the Sun we need an acceleration of “only” 32 km/sec. So how big a rocket do we need to dump one ton of waste into the Sun?

Now for Some Rocket Science

The acceleration a rocket provides depends on two things: how powerful a fuel it uses and how little the rocket’s structure and payload weigh relative to the amount of fuel it can carry. I’ll use some optimistic numbers to spare you the mathematics. For brevity, I’ll use “weighs” to mean “has a mass of.”

Assume we use the best known fuel (liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen) and suppose that the fuel tanks, the engines, and the control system are 10 percent of the initial mass of the rocket. That is, 90 percent of its take-off mass is fuel. For the moment I’ll ignore the mass of the payload—that is, whatever useful cargo the rocket carries.

The maximum velocity this idealized rocket can achieve is just over 10 km/sec, not quite enough to escape from Earth and a long way short of the 32 km/sec we need to reach the Sun. As soon as we add a load of any kind, the final velocity will be lower. If the payload weighs the same as the structure, the final velocity will be 7.5 km/sec. Our rocket will head into space, slow to a stop, and fall back down again.

The secret of spaceflight is “staging.” Take that 7.5 km/sec rocket and put it on top of a much bigger rocket with the same proportions. The result is a rocket capable of accelerating the original payload to 15 km/sec but at the cost of a large increase in the take-off mass.

Suppose the payload weighs one ton, and assume that the structure of the topmost stage weighs the same. This structure holds nine tons of fuel, so the total mass of the top stage is eleven tons. This mass forms the payload of the bigger stage that lifts it, so the latter weighs 121 tons. If we put another stage underneath, it will weigh 1,331 tons. That’s a total of 1,463 tons, about half as much as a Saturn-V. If each stage adds 7.5 km/sec, we are up to 22.5 km/sec, a remarkable velocity but way short of the 32 km/sec we need.

To cut a long story short, the final Sun rocket not only has to have four stages, but the payload of each stage has to be cut to about 74 percent of the structure mass. To dispose of one ton of nuclear waste will require a 44,000-ton rocket. If we assume a more realistic launch mass of 3,000 tons (about Saturn-V size), the payload that finally reaches the sun will weigh about 68 kg (under 150 lbs). The trash bill comes to about $8 million per pound.

This calculation was based on rather optimistic values for fuel energy and structure mass. It also ignores the fact that a large part of the payload should consist of a steel canister. This serves three purposes: it provides radiation shielding for ground handling, it ensures that a launch failure won’t disperse the waste, and it gives the payload some chance of reaching the Sun without being vaporized and carried away in the solar wind.

Aiming for the Stars

Putting a spacecraft on a non-return flight into interstellar space is much easier than hitting the Sun. To reach the Sun you need to subtract 100 percent of Earth’s orbital velocity; to reach solar escape velocity you need only add 41 percent to it. The total velocity increment from takeoff becomes 16.73 km/sec. A three-stage rocket with a launch mass of 120 tons could send one ton of nuclear waste to the stars; a Saturn-V sized rocket could send twenty-five tons.

The Sun would be a great trash-can, but it’s too darn difficult to get to.