Interestingly, development of rockets has only made a bunch of the things you mention cheaper (to the multiple orders of magnitude), not impossible.

Eg. determining location through radio signal triangulation can tell you a location pretty well, but would require placing a lot of signal stations throughout the world. Eg. remember the time-synchronisation mechanisms for watches through AM signals (including in hand watches).

Similarly, we did build a global communications network by placing expensive undersea cables across the world, but systems like StarLink are much cheaper (once you get to economies of scale for launching satellites).

So, like many things, rockets have accellerated discovery and progress, but are ultimately not the be-all solution: they work in tandem with the rest of science and engineering (including cultural development).