why do you assume we wouldn't have seen value in satellites if we didn't see value in going to the moon (or mars)?

There's clearly an extraordinary value in satellites from a military perspective, for instance to enable spying. Heck, Hubble directly benefited from the work that went into spy satellites and NASA was afterwards gifted 2 uneeded spy satellites to use for scientific exploration (1 is (was? as in finished) being converted to be used, the other AFAIK is still in storage).

GPS wasn't created to enable us to do anything in space, but to focus down here on earth. i.e. what was needed to fight wars better. One can argue if that was "necessary" but it was clearly earth focused.