They’re on Mars. A whole different planet. There will be a difference in pressure regardless of the Earth-like conditions within the colony. She’s also never been exposed to other humans, so her immune system isn’t equipped to deal with it yet.
It’s the same thing as Europeans bringing diseases over to the New World that wiped out a huge % of the Natives who had zero immunity to them.
She grew up on Mars and her microbiome has adapted to Mars, not to Earth. She would definitely get really sick in the best case scenario, worst case is she dies.
it probably actually the illnesses her being from mars earth illnesses that just take us out for a little bit would devastate her immune system making them fatal
She’s acclimated to Mars, a sterile environment. Coming to earth, meeting up with all the nasty crap here she’s never been inoculated for? Yeah, she’d have coronaherpegonnasyphlaids in about 2 seconds without the helmet.
Too much bacteria and germs in the air.
It’s reasonable to think that living in the relative sterility of a space station her whole life might leave her more suspectible to stuff like the regular flu and it’s variants for example.
Or maybe the sudden exposure to an atmosphere filled with pollen triggers a terrible autoimmune response and gives her deadly asthma?
I mean omitting the fact that her character is defined by her anxiety, I guess it’d be more so to avoid spreading viruses into this planet as opposed to protecting herself but maybe both
If she grew up on Mars, maybe she was never exposed to all the viral infections most people has to go through and build resistance to it. This is commonly an issue for tribes that never got exposed to viral infections because of their isolation, and integrating them with modern society can often be deadly for them. Maybe the helmet helps with that.