If you look at the amount of money to be spent and consider that much of it is US tax money in grants, you can see why this is happening.
The opportunity for graft, theft, etc., is just too much.
From an excerpt about C.S Lewis:
“’Scientists’ as such are not the target [said Lewis]. . . What we are obviously up against throughout the story is not scientists but officials.” This is an important distinction for Lewis. Scientific planning is not necessarily evil, “but ‘Under modern conditions any effective invitation to Hell will certainly appear in the guise of scientific planning’ as Hitler’s regime in fact did.”