When Neil Armstrong first stepped on the moon and uttered the famous phrase, "Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed," Collins was in orbit, 60 miles above, just as busy, and just as excited, telling the team back in Houston he was listening to communications with his comrades, and it was "fantastic."
As he orbited, half the time he could talk to controllers but when he was on the back side of the moon, he was completely cut off. It was because of this part of the mission that some dubbed him the loneliest man in humanity. As he recalled in a 2016 NPR interview, he didn't think of it that way. He said, "The fact that I was ... out of communications, rather than that being a fear, that was a joy because I got Mission Control to shut up for a little while. Every once in a while.
I have no idea if this is true, but it made me laugh out loud when I read it.
"Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe.” -King T'Challa, Black Panther
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. ~Winston Churchill
To me, the most interesting thing he said about that lunar mission was that he had prepared himself mentally to leave lunar orbit and return to Earth without Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, should their Lunar Ascent Module not make it back to the Command Module he was in.
It was a privilege for me to cover that and other historic Apollo missions from the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, as a 20-year-old radio reporter.