The contract to build Seadragon was awarded to Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, on 29 September 1955 and her keel was laid down on 20 June 1956.

Members of the crew laid out a softball diamond with the pitcher's box at the pole where the captain claimed he hit a fly ball at 4:00 pm on Wednesday and it wasn't caught until 4:00 am on Thursday.

From the pole, Seadragon (having no other choice) turned south, and after conducting experiments in cooperation with scientists on ice island T-3, headed for the Chukchi Sea and Bering Strait.

Transiting the Bering Strait and the Chukchi Sea, she contacted T-3, then moved further north to rendezvous with sister ship, USS Skate, en route from New London, Connecticut.

On 31 July, the two submarines rendezvoused under the ice and continued on to the North Pole, arriving on 2 August for sonar and weapons evaluations.

Torpedo evaluations off the Washington coast followed; and, on 10 August 1964, Seadragon sailed west in response to the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

During September and October, she operated out of Subic Bay; then, after a call at Hong Kong continued on to Okinawa and Japan to conduct public relations cruises and to participate in further Seventh Fleet exercises.

In twenty-four years of active service, Seadragon steamed over 200,000 miles, dove and surfaced 1800 times, made thirteen deployments to the Western Pacific, and conducted four under ice operations.

[2] Decommissioned on 12 June 1984 and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 30 April 1986, ex-Seadragon entered the Navy's Nuclear-Powered Ship-Submarine Recycling Program on 1 October 1994.