Reactor pumped lasers have the potential to be scaled to multi-megawatt power levels with long run times. In proposed designs, the laser will be capable of output powers of several megawatts of power for run times of several hours. Such a laser would have many diverse applications such as material processing, space debris removal and power beaming to geosynchronous satellites or the moon. However, before such systems can be designed, fundamental laser parameters such as small signal gain, saturation intensity and efficiency must be determined over a wide operational parameter space. We have recently measured fundamental laser parameters for a selection of nuclear pumped visible and near IR laser transitions in atomic neon, argon and xenon. An overview of the results of this investigation are presented.
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