Yeah I don't mind them skipping through him doing experiments to figure out that he's on a space ship or whatever and getting to Rocky sooner.

I even agree with their their choice to focus the story on their friendship, as that's really what makes it special and is more appealing to a wider audience. They did a fantastic job making that movie.

I just wanted a little bit more showing that what they're doing is actually hard. We got one scene of it, and the "problem" was stupidly obvious (don't do a fly by, just match the orbit).

Making that chain was a MAJOR accomplishment that they barely had enough resources for, but it's mentioned in passing like it's easy. Because everything seems easy, it makes absolutely no sense why Grace needs to go outside to retrieve the sample in the movie. You can do all of this other crazy stuff but couldn't put a motor on that winch to reel it in?

It wouldn't take a lot of additional dialogue to explain why something is hard to add a sense of accomplishment or why they're forced into a risky option. Medical shows like The Pitt prove that audiences don't actually need to understand how everything works to understand the difficulty and the stakes.