So, you want to know why the International Space Station dumped Windows in favor of Linux? Ask NASA chief technologist Mason Peck. He’s doing an “Ask Me Anything” thread on Reddit today, and he’s down to party.

Peck’s been in charge of NASA’s tech decisions since January 2012. He oversees the agency’s tech investments and also guides how future astronauts will use new innovations in missions to come. This means he has to work not only within the confines of government space programs, but he’s also working with commercial space companies and academic institutions.

Before you go asking him your questions, though, check out dude’s impressive background:

His research was sponsored by NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concepts, and one of his experiments currently lives aboard the International Space Station. He worked at Boeing, Honeywell, Northrop Grumman, Goodrich, Lockheed Martin, and Bell Helicopter, where he worked on the V-22 Osprey and a smaller tilt-rotor aircraft that later would become the BA609. He wrote 90 academic articles and holds 17 patents about space tech. And then he was a professor at Cornell. You know, like you do. No big.

So far on the thread, he says:

We need to create ways to help astronauts survive exposure to galactic cosmic rays and other hazards on the trip there and back. Getting there quicker would help. So that inspires the creation of advanced propulsion capabilities, but right now there’s nothing on the horizon to shorten the trip time enough so that we don’t have to worry about radiation.

I’m very excited by the prospect of citizen space, that is, individuals building their own space technology and launching it. Some incredible innovations come from the do-it-yourself or maker community, and I expect the renaissance in technology that makers represent will have a big impact on NASA’s future.

Right now, we’re working on the technologies that will get humans to an asteroid by 2025 and on to Mars in the 2030s. Some of those technologies include propulsion and navigation, but also technologies to protect astronauts from radiation on the trip there and back. Some day, the earliest explorers of the outer solar system and beyond will be robotic spacecraft, some may be as small as smart phones.

Image credit: NASA/Flickr

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These are just a few glimmers into the psyche of one of the world’s most brilliant, generous, and influential people. Today, at 10:45 a.m. Pacific, Bill Gates hosted an Ask Me Anything (AMA) on Reddit. Topics included humanitarian efforts as chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the open-source movement, and the technology that will change the future.

During the session, Gates emphasized the need for government compromise and the impact that health has on the overall human condition. The Foundation has put significant resources into eradicating polio, and as soon as that is accomplished, it plans to take on malaria and measles. (And in case you are wondering, he led the session using a Perceptive Pixel display and got his Surface Pro last week.)

“Our goals are focused on helping the poorest [globally] and improving education [in the U.S.],” he said. “We spend half of our money on global health. One metric to look at is reducing the number of children [under 5] who die. My annual letter talks about the amazing progress that has been made on this. Amazingly, as health improves families choose to have less kids, so paradoxically population growth goes DOWN as you improve health helping with almost every issue — from stability to the environment.”

Gates was referring to his recently published 2013 Annual Letter, where he discusses the impact that setting trackable goals, analyzing data, and measuring progress have on efforts to improve the human condition.

He also used the AMA to emphasize the need for policies that address climate change.

“I am disappointed more isn’t being done to reduce carbon emissions. Governments need to spend more on basic energy R&D to make sure we get cheap, non-CO2 emitting sources as soon as possible. […] There has been far too little work on this.”

In addition to health and the environment, education is another key component to Gates’ vision for a better world. The foundation backs organizations (and startups) that make education more accessible and effective, and he talked about how the Internet is changing the education industry.

“The ability to test your knowledge and get refreshed on a topic you are making mistakes on will personalize a lot of the learning experience. People like Sal Khan [of the online Khan University] are out in front figuring out how to do this well. My foundation has funded a lot of MOOCs focused on community college kids or kids who have to take remedial math. I am optimistic these will make a big difference.”

He also said that “robots, pervasive screens, and speech interaction” will change the way people interact with computers.

Gates has spoken extensively on the need for improvements in health, education, economic development, and climate change. Many of the Redditers thus used the opportunity to ask personal questions. Beyond expressing his love of tennis and playing bridge, Gates also talked about Microsoft and his relationship with Steve Jobs.

“He and I respected each other. Our biggest joint project was the Mac, where Microsoft had more people on the project than Apple did as we wrote a lot of applications. I saw Steve regularly over the years, including spending an afternoon with him a few months before he tragically passed away.”

Ever wondered what it would be like to be the President of the United States of America? Kind of like Barack Obama? Well, head over to Reddit because the POTUS with the mostest is doing an “Ask Me Anything,” or AMA.

No, I’m not kidding. Yes, it is real.

The President tweeted from his official Twitter account, “Hey, everyone: I’ll be taking your questions online today. Ask yours here: http://OFA.BO/gBof44  -bo”

Indeed, he even signed it “-bo,” which is the President’s official signal that the tweet did not come from an assistant handling his Twitter, but from the man himself.

Reddit’s AMA is a forum for all kinds of people to offer themselves as a sounding board for the many questions people may have about their situation. A number of celebrities including Bill Nye the Science Guy, comedian Louis C.K., and actor Zach Braff have all participated. You can see the top scoring Reddit AMAs here.

Source: http://i.imgur.com/oz0a7.jpg

President Obama “proving” he’s really on Reddit.

We’re getting reports of people experiencing the “Reddit overload” page, which is to be expected. You think the President’s motorcade causes a traffic jam? Just think of Reddit’s servers right now.

Obama started off the AMA with a not about Hurricane Isaac, which is currently hitting the Gulf and Southeastern regions of the United States. He also included this verification photo, which you can see right, though sadly it does not include a piece of paper handwritten with his name and date on it.

Thus far Obama has nearly 500 comments, many of which are questions about the Space Program. Many others are demanding a better “confirmation” photo from the POTUS.

Throughout his presidency and now re-election campaign, President Obama has taken to technology readily. He not only keeps his Twitter feed fairly lively, but has also participated in a Hangout on Google’s social network Google+. Indeed, in his election campaign, Obama is even accepting donations via Square, the mobile payments dongle that allows small businesses to swipe credit cards via the audio jack in their smartphones.

We’ve reached out to Reddit for comment and will update the post upon hearing back.

For all those having trouble getting Reddit to load, check out a few of our favorite threads thus far:

Main image photoshop via Tom Cheredar/VentureBeat; President Verification Obama image via President Obama

Hotmail team members appealed to the community of news aggregation site Reddit.com by posting an “ask-me-anything” thread today, where users can come in and basically ask questions about the service and get feedback from the Hotmail team.

But leave it to the tech- and Internet-savvy Reddit community to ask the hardest question. The top-rated question in the thread is why users should abandon their Gmail accounts and head over to Hotmail. The comments immediately put the Hotmail on the defensive, with Reddit users wondering why the service didn’t use some of the most popular email protocols that sync up to mobile devices and external email programs.

Hotmail has faded into a bit of obscurity after Gmail emerged as the clear email service to beat. (Though in terms of total users, research firm comScore shows that Hotmail’s still king, with 361.7 million users compared to Gmail’s 193.3 million.) Gmail syncs with the rest of its applications like Google Calendar. Google also has the edge in that a lot of companies use its email service and connect it with other apps, like Analytics. Google Apps has signed up 3 million companies with more than 30 million users total.

The Hotmail team said Microsoft is trying a number of things to differentiate itself from Gmail and make it more viable, like removing limits on attachment sizes and offering a deeper level of connectivity with its web-based Office applications. But file-sharing is really a non-issue at this point with the emergence of services like Dropbox. Google has also been in the web-based office game for some time now.

It’s not the first time Microsoft has ventured into Reddit. The company dove into Reddit back in September to help promote the newest version of its Internet-browsing application, Internet Explorer 9. The feedback then was pretty positive — but that’s mostly because it was actually a decent application. Microsoft even purchased advertising for IE9 on Reddit, a community that hasn’t traditionally been friendly to the black sheep of the browser family.

It seems the fangs are out in this thread as well. Best of luck to Microsoft while it navigates the Internets on this one.