 NBC executives reviewed the plot for "Space Seed" and approved it, but Justman reassessed the outline, saying that it needed to be heavily revised. In September, Wilber was given a list of suggested changes including asking him to remove any mention of the setting, as the producers did not want to say how far in the future Star Trek was set, and to remove the chess scene. Wilber submitted a second draft, but Roddenberry still had problems with basic elements of the script. He did not believe common criminals would be fired into space as a solution and strongly disliked the notion of space pirates. The second draft introduced the idea that Kirk marooned Erickson and his crew on a new planet; this remained in the final version. Wilber was not asked for a third draft; Coon was tasked with the re-write; he submitted it on December 7 and updated it twice over the following five days. Wilber accepted Coon's re-writes, and left the staff after the submission of his second draft as his contractual obligations were complete.
