Originally Posted by Allister
I was thinking that the material would be able to compress, and then expand again without the need to detroy itself. Surely such a material isn't out of the realms of possibility. The only part that may suffer damage would be the shell. I figure something like Kevlar could take a pretty severe blow without cracking, but even if it did, my intent would be to make it repairable.
Ok, maybe this is all pie in the sky, but it makes for an interesting discussion.
I don't know if a viscoelastic material can absorb that much energy. It's the expanding back portion that's a problem.