Ah dang - he lived a life and inspired a generation of children.

Imagine being him, orbiting the moon by yourself - on the backside and in the dark with 0 communication back to Earth...total isolation

And your two friends are on the moon with a return craft whose engine had never been fired on the planet...not knowing if they could return

Apollo program was a massive amount of planning, engineering and wtf-unknowns.

A significant portion of, especially the first trip to the moon, was "I hope this shit works" because we didn't have proper simulations or math with known constants, only estimates

A joke i remember hearing Neil talk about was that the math was actually easy, it was either right, or dead.

Does moon gravity work the same as Earth...well, it should??

Is there any friction between Earth and the Moon that will throw us off course? YOLO it

How hot is the sun?

The best fact is that the lunar accent engine could never be test-fired, the fuels would melt the housing.

So Collins is orbiting, waiting to see if the engine would work to hopefully get his friends back, assuming their unproven orbital math would work on the moon...or dead

Collins didnt get the same fame as Neil or Buzz but he damn well deserved it.