Multiple factors were involved in the decision of exploration of Mars.
Mars is similar to Earth in size and it is the next planet. Moreover, evidence was present to suggest that liquid water existed, and may possibly still exist, on Mars. All of these factors led to the planet's exploration.
It gave empires new technologies and attracted more people
Hercules was the son of the Greek god Zeus.
After Hercules committed the sin of murdering his family, the Greek god Apollo assigned 12 heroic labors to Hercules in order to rid him of the guilt of killing his family.
1) a .... i do not know the other ones sadly
The Soviets were proclaiming themselves as communist, though the reality was not as the communism truly says a state should be run. If the Soviets practiced the textbook communism, then everyone in the society would have been equal. Everyone was going to earn the same amount of money and get the same things necessary for life without any problem. The economy would have been self-sustaining and that was going to be supported by excellent planning. There were not going to be social classes, but everyone would have been in the same class. The Soviets did pretty much everything wrong with those ideas, and in all fairness the human nature just doesn't allow for something like that to exist.
Mikhail Gorbachev was hated by the hardline communist. The main reason for that was that he was trying to make the country slightly more liberal, more open to the world and to modernization. That was seen as treason of the communist ideology by the hardline communist so they were against all of that.
