Putting the first people on the moon, the first people on any foreign celestial body, as a show of power during the cold war isn't what I'd consider "token". P

Putting the first people on the moon, the first people on any foreign celestial body, as a show of power during the cold war isn't what I'd consider "token". Putting people on the moon today is a lot less substantive, and doing it with decades old technology makes it even less so. I see the correlation you're trying to draw: "neither is of any practical use", but I think even that ignores the very deliberate effects the first space race had on the USSR.