The determination to go to the moon directly or indirectly gave us most of the high tech. toys the present generation couldn't live without. When I was a kid high tech. was in-the-home bathrooms, electricity, and (non partyline) telephone service. No man-made satellites and no computers = no GPS, no over the horizon communication. No microwave cookers.
Much of that so-called innovation that came from The Space Program is NASA marketing.
NASA (more specifically North American Aviation, Grumman, Rocketdyne, Rockwell, and a host of other contractors) reached out to innovative companies to find new technologies under development for use in solving technical problems for America's space effort.
For example, the much touted NASA discovery of Teflon. In fact, Teflon (Polytetrafluoroethylene) was discovered in 1938. It was used on The Manhattan Project, and first used commercially in 1951.
Another example, Microwave ovens. The concept of using microwaves to produce heat was discovered in 1921. Microwave technology was widely in use by 1939 (radar), The first practical application of using microwaves to heat food (the prototype microwave oven) dates from 1954.
Even GPS isn't a direct result of our early Space Race program. All during The Space Race, until the end of Apollo and well into the 1980's satellite navigation was performed by polar orbiting satellites and RF doppler measurments. The GPS system, the brainchild of Navy engineers, not NASA, didn't become operational until 1993.
