Yes but the manned space program was very different than the spysat spacelaunch program. If the goal was only unmanned satellites, the space program would have cost a tenth of what it did. just look to the ICBM/SLBM programs, which diverged from the manned rocket programs after only a couple years. The tech looks similar but is actually very different in practice.
At the beginning of the space race automatic solutions were very limited, and manned spacecrafts were planned to be used for some routine operations, like reconnaissance.
Unless sending people up to mess with a sat costs more than launching its replacement, which would be true of everything short of massive weapons stations. And from day one everyone realized that sending men up to intercept wasnt practical, especially if the target didnt want to be intercepted.
