You should have a USB cable that allows this to happen. Otherwise, if the SD card is required, the camera should have not fired.
Some cameras will fire under special setup without the card installed in order to demo it but I never heard of those images being stored anywhere.
The Nikon Power Shots have both internal and provisions for plug -in memory cards. You do not need the plug-in cards at all.
If you lost the cord, a replacement would be indicated.
