The moon is an interesting destination for its Helium-3. We will run out at some point on Earth (Helium literally floats away), and going to the Moon for this resource could very well be our first extra-terrestrial mining operation.
The first geopositioning satellite[1], first satellite that broadcast of a human voice from space[2], and the first photos taken from orbit[3] all predate the first human in space[4].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_(satellite) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCORE_(satellite) [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explorer_6 [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vostok_1
Telstar 1 started blasting TV from space in 1962.
I don't know how that required Gargarin or Shepard to be in their tin cans first.
Also, we sent up SCORE in 1958, and famously Arthur C. Clarke wrote about using satellites for telecommunications in 1945.
TIROS, the US's first weather satellite, preceded Gargarin.
KH-1, the US's first spy satellite, meant for photographic surveillance of the Soviet Union, was even earlier.
These certainly didn't require humans in tin cans first.
3He can be made by DD fusion (which either produces 3He, or produces T which can be allowed to decay to 3He; neutrons from DD fusion can also be used to make tritium which can also be allowed to decay to 3He.) This is Helion's plan, with the system operated in a mode that suppresses DT fusion.
All the "get to the moon" or beyond SF, which per Robert Heinlein was an explicit goal of his juveniles, to teach the attitudes and what you needed to learn to to get into space, which he was later told actually worked for a number of Apollo project people was ... what??
Can't make fusion reactors that interesting and the SF series never tried except when they didn't get a chance to shut down properly and went boom (actually a very beginning plot point), but I'm glad for all the fiction creators who inspired me into a STEM career when I was young.
Your digression seems irrelevant to that point.
We didn't use Heinlein stories as a source of evidence about reality. We didn't use thorium rockets to get to the Moon. Nor did we develop monoatomic hydrogen ("Single-H") fuel.
Similarly, we don't use Gundam stories.
Also, Project Daedalus' proposal to mine the Jupiter atmosphere for 3He for fusion predates the first Gundam episode, and is likely what influenced the series. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Daedalus .