Experiments on electron acceleration and optical diagnostics of laser wakes were performed on the HERCULES facility in a wide range of laser and plasma parameters. Using frequency domain holography we demonstrated single shot visualization of individual plasma waves, produced by 40 TW, 30 fs laser pulses focused to the intensity of 10^{19} W/cm^2 onto a supersonic He gas jet with plasma densities n_e ~ 10^{19} cm^{−3}. These holographic “snapshots” capture the variation in shape of the plasma wave with distance behind the driver, and resolve wave front curvature seen previously only in simulations. High-energy quasimonoenergetic electron beams were generated using plasma density in the range 1.5 x 10^{19} < n_e < 3.5 x 10^{19} cm^{−3}. These experiments demonstrated that the energy, charge, divergence, and pointing stability of the beam can be controlled by changing n_e, and that higher electron energies and more stable beams are produced for lower densities. An optimized quasimonoenergetic beam of over 300 MeV and 10 mrad angular divergence is demonstrated at a plasma density of n_e = 1.5 x 10^{19} cm^{−3}. The resultant relativistic electron beams have been used to perform photo-fission of 238U with a record high reaction yields of ~ 3 x 10^{5} / J. The results of initial experiments on electron acceleration at 70 TW are discussed.