NASA gets it's funding from Congress.
Without funding from Congress, NASA would not exist.

The reason NASA was established and got funding,
was to beat the Soviets to the Moon- and this was
related to PR- to it's perceived propaganda value.
Apollo achieved that end- it also did other things, but the other things were not the top priority- instead they were secondary to the goal of beating the Soviets to landing a man on the Moon.

The reason why Soviet put a satellite into orbit was to send a message. The message was, we have shown that we can nuke you and we are more technologically advanced than anyone else.
Russia was and is mostly a backward country- in terms of the vast majority of it's population. [Though one can't claim the USA was highly civilized, either. Or Europe for that matter.]

This doesn't mean they were not people involved who had wonderful ideas about the future of space- basically none of them were that interested in the PR aspect- but people interested in PR [or politics] as rule are generally useless for actually doing anything other than flap their lips.
But it is why they were funded and given priority.

[Or how much time does Congress spend listening to scientists who know about space, compared to listening to the bureaucrats talking about space programs].

So, putting Sputnik in orbit was mostly about cheap ad for a government- for communism. The image was, we are the future.

So, after the USA won the PR war, it would lose the war if it simply stop being involved to space activity. The big push was over, but you didn't want give up the ground won.

So an approach which was considered more practical than "do whatever it take to get to the Moon before the end of decade", was pursued. But more important and immediate, one had created a huge workforce that you needed to get to the Moon- you needed something for these people to do.

And so, NASA the job program was born. And did such wonderful thing as build and operate the Space Shuttle and build ISS. And hopeful do something useful by exploring the Moon [though that could be wishful thinking].

Of course I believe there is enormous potential related to Space- perhaps the most significant being a way of providing all energy needs of all the people on this planet [and yeah, without producing any CO2, as though that was important]. But even if we get fusion to work, and thereby have another way to provide all energy needs, Space is 99.999 etc of everything. Space is sort of like a different dimension to our existence- and a much bigger leap than going from the water to land in terms of shaping our consciousness, evolution, and technology.

If you really want Change, space is it.