Mercury Seven part-time student at the University of Maryland, College Park from 1956 to 1959. Both astronauts were ultimately awarded their bachelor's degrees after their 1962 space flights. NASA introduced the astronauts in Washington on April 9, 1959. Although the agency viewed Project Mercury's purpose as an experiment to determine whether humans could survive space travel, the seven men immediately became national heroes and were compared by "Time" magazine to "Columbus, Magellan, Daniel Boone, and the Wright brothers." Two hundred reporters overflowed the room used for the announcement and alarmed the astronauts, who were unused to such a large audience. Because they
Seven Sleepers they were actually in the cave. In Welsh, a late riser may be referred to as a "saith cysgadur"—seven sleeper—as in the 1885 novel "Rhys Lewis" by Daniel Owen, where the protagonist is referred to as such in chapter 37, p. 294 (Hughes a'i Fab, Caerdydd, 1948). This has the double meaning of one who wakes at seven—well into the working day in a Welsh rural setting. In the some countries people say: "May you sleep like the people of Ephesus". Seven Sleepers In Christian and Muslim tradition, the Seven Sleepers () is the story of a group of youths