from project to reality

Guess you probably don't need this, since it is in the dictionary? and you have them in Ireland?

cornflakes (and rice bubbles) are popular breakfast cereals (eg Kelloggs brand) and collectible cards and plastic toys were (are still?) often put in the packets.The same with jelly crystals - they also had cards for children to collect, here in NZ anyway.

cornflakes = small thin yellowish-orange pieces of dry food made from crushed maize, often eaten with milk and sugar in the morning. (Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)

In the 1960s, the American public education system geared itself to preparing as many children as possible to further their education after high school. The “concentration” on science and math was a result of the desire to win the space race during the Cold War. America needed more engineers, scientists, etc. in order for science fiction to become reality. One could even argue that the social commentary in the original Star Trek television program reflected this ‘propaganda’. That has apparently worked if you consider the comments made by those who had anything to do with the space race, and did actually refer to the series that had inspired the hope that this dream could come true.

The 50 public school system(s) began to shift from the classical elementary school education with ‘one class, one teacher’ system toward a ‘one subject, one teacher’ system similar to university systems. This enabled educational ‘tracking’ to select the cream of the crop and to generate a more concentrated and focused science/math educational career while still offering the all-round education that the American school systems offer(s/ed). We were actually told that these changes were to prepare for the demands of further education.

This approach did, as you say, bring fantasy to reality. The fantasy of children from the 1950s, portrayed on cereal boxes, among others, was engrained in the minds of the children from the 1960s as a possible reality, for obvious political reasons. The success was possible because the “marriage” between the military and scientific communities now had a “noble” goal. It was the military factories that got the contracts to build the Lunar Module. Grumman Aerospace, referred to in the movie Apollo 13, built the LEM.