How would you talk to someone on the moon without using a radio?

Answer 1

Sound needs a medium like air in which to travel. So in space, where there is no air, sound cannot travel. (The loud explosions you hear in movies like Star Wars when a space ship blows up would never happen - the explosions would be silent, despite what Hollywood would have you believe!) So, in the capsule, say, of the space shuttle, they speak normally to each other as there is air in which the sound can travel. But when the Apollo astronauts were on the moon, where there is no air, or when the Shuttle astronauts need to contact earth through the vacuum of space, radio has to be used because radio waves are electromagnetic waves and can travel easily in a vacuum.

Answer 2

When two astronauts are inside the same vehicle, capsule, shuttle, space station, or anything else

where they don't need helmets and oxygen masks in order to breathe, they communicate by speaking,

just as they do when they're in an office on earth.

When they're in a place with no air, such as during a space "walk" or on the surface of the moon,

they communicate by radio, even if they're standing next to each other.

Answer 3

sound cannot be heard on the surface of the moon because there is no air to carry the sound waves you cannot talk directly as we do on earth . The astronaut landing on moon need a wireless set to talk each other using radio waves

Answer 4

The same ways you would communicate here on Earth. Inside your spacecraft or habitat, there's air to breathe and carry sound waves, so you talk. Between one spacecraft and another, radio.

Within an orbital habitat, we'll use telephone because everything will be wired up; or we can use our cell phones as we do now. If the habitat is large enough, we'll be able to build it as a giant cylinder, and spin it to create artificial gravity; we'll be in the inside, and you'll be able to see all around, so we could use something like signal flags or flashing lights. Nah; radio will be easier.

When we go to the Moon and Mars, the settlements will be linked with ethernet and optical fiber, which will carry video and audio signals, and you'll probably have a videophone. (These have been predicted here on Earth for 50 years, and with Skype, it's finally coming to pass.)

Between Earth and Mars, we'll probably use radio, or perhaps laser beams, to pass messages. There won't be any "conversations" with a minimum lightspeed delay of about 3 minutes, and the delay can be up to about 20 minutes depending on where in their orbits each planet is. So leave a voicemail. There's a period of about 2 weeks when the planets are on the opposite sides of the Sun and direct communication isn't possible, so it's likely that IT&T (Interplanetary Telephone & Telegraph) will place communications relay satellites in the Trojan points 60 degrees ahead and 60 degrees behind the Earth in its orbit around the Sun. This will mean that one of the satellites will be visible from any point in the solar system.

So, the same way we communicate now; with your cell phone.

It's interesting, because when I was watching the first-run broadcasts of Star Trek, I thought the idea of Captain Kirk's personal communicator was absolutely fantastic. I couldn't IMAGINE it actually happening. But my Android smartphone is not only a communicator, but also a videophone, computer, game machine and library all in one. All in 50 years!

Answer 5

Sadly, no astronauts have been to the moon since December of 1972 and President Obame just proposed abandoning the project to return, thus it may well be many decades before we do go back. When they were there however, they communicated with Earth, and with each other when they were out of the Lunar Module, by radio.

Answer 6

Radio, primarily. There is no air in space to conduct sounds, but you could use any solid object as a medium for conduction. For example, two astronauts could touch their helmets together and talk without using their radios. In fact, even something like a "tin can and a string" telephone would probably work.

Answer 7

You somehow need to transmit signals over a distance of ca. 380,000 kilometers. The radio is commonly used; electromagnetic waves other than radio waves could be used in theory - for example light signals.

Answer 8

Sound needs some sort of median to travel through. The moon has no atmosphere. Any noise the astronauts make will not travel through the vacuum of space.

Answer 9

By short range radio

Answer 10

By radio, semaphore, or note-pad.