 Why was Si given a symbolic gold watch by the Department of Space Exploration?
What's more important—Man's conquest of space, or one spaceman's life? They also had a banquet for him, complete with speeches by such bigwigs of the Department of Space Exploration as Academician Lofting Gubelin and Doctor Hans Girard-Perregaux. In common with recipients of gold watches of a score of generations before him, Si Pond would have preferred something a bit more tangible in the way of reward, such as a few shares of Variable Basic to add to his portfolio. The gold watch idea had been that of Lofting Gubelin, which was typical, he being in the way of a living anachronism himself. His explanation was that a phobia against having his eyes touched prohibited either surgery to remould his eyeballs and cure his myopia, or contact lenses. Born in our Ultrawelfare State, he was guaranteed his fundamental womb-to-tomb security by being issued that minimum number of Basic shares in our society that allows him an income sufficient to secure the food, clothing, shelter, medical care and education to sustain a low level of subsistence. He is now legally eligible for retirement. He was drafted into the working force reserves, served his time, and is now free from toil for the balance of his life. If it is admitted that our organization has degenerated to the point that we haven't a single pilot, then it might well be that the Economic Planning Board, and especially those cloddies on Appropriations, will terminate the whole Department of Space Exploration." "Unfortunately, our present-day sailor can't be separated from his money quite so easily. He brought his wallet from his pocket, and flicked it open to his universal credit card. Twenty-two others had taken the training with him, and only he and Rod Cameroon had passed the finals. Two weeks later, Rod had burned on a faulty take-off on what should have been a routine Moon run. Law prevented him from ever being called up for contributing to the country's labor needs again. The only fair thing was to let the technologically unemployed remain unemployed, with their Inalienable Basic stock as the equivalent of unemployment insurance, while the few workers still needed put in a reasonable number of hours a day, a reasonable number of weeks a year and a reasonable number of years in a life time. When new employees were needed, a draft lottery was held. If you were drawn, you must need serve. The dissatisfaction those chosen might feel at their poor luck was offset by the fact that they were granted additional Variable Basic shares, according to the tasks they fulfilled.
 He was retiring from the Department.
 He had just successfully completed a dangerous space mission that they were impressed with.  As an apology for the difficult task he had to complete while in space.  He was retiring from the Department.  As a means to convince him to stay on with the Department and continue completing missions.