<P> The pilot episode `` Eleven Days to Zero '' was filmed in color but shown in black - and - white . It introduces the audience to the futuristic nuclear submarine S.S.R.N. Seaview and the lead members of her crew , including the designer and builder of the submarine Admiral Harriman Nelson ( Richard Basehart ) , and Commander Lee Crane ( David Hedison ) , who becomes the Seaview 's captain after the murder of her original commanding officer . The submarine is based at the Nelson Institute of Marine Research ( NIMR ) in Santa Barbara , California , and is often moored some 500 feet below NIMR in a secret underground submarine pen carved out of solid rock . The Seaview is officially for undersea marine research and visits many exotic locations in the Seven Seas , but its secret mission is to defend the planet from all world and extraterrestrial threats in the then - future of the 1970s . </P>
<P> The pilot episode `` Eleven Days to Zero '' was filmed in color but shown in black - and - white . It introduces the audience to the futuristic nuclear submarine S.S.R.N. Seaview and the lead members of her crew , including the designer and builder of the submarine Admiral Harriman Nelson ( Richard Basehart ) , and Commander Lee Crane ( David Hedison ) , who becomes the Seaview 's captain after the murder of her original commanding officer . The submarine is based at the Nelson Institute of Marine Research ( NIMR ) in Santa Barbara , California , and is often moored some 500 feet below NIMR in a secret underground submarine pen carved out of solid rock . The Seaview is officially for undersea marine research and visits many exotic locations in the Seven Seas , but its secret mission is to defend the planet from all world and extraterrestrial threats in the then - future of the 1970s . </P>
name of submarine in voyage to the bottom of the sea
name of submarine in voyage to the bottom of the sea
S.S.R.N. Seaview
S.S.R.N. Seaview