Why would you do this?

This is the most incompetent administration in US history. There could be a thousand and one different petty reasons why they'd do this, but you can be sure it's nothing strategic and forward-thinking. They simply lack the capacity for that. The sad thing is they're opening the door for China to eat our lunch. They profess they don't want that, but damn, so much of what they're doing is leading to that as a consequence.

The Vought’s of the world have openly stated their desire to turn the United States into a theocracy. They’ve seen secularism and science as enemies for ages, even beyond climate change denial, and they know that this moment is their best chance to kill things before consequences start catching up with them. Cutting science projects is a huge waste of money because you’re axing both the money invested in the mission equipment and the people, and that allows them to cause injury which cannot easily be reversed. Even in a fantasy scenario where, say, Trump is impeached or drops dead next year and is replaced by his complete opposite, it’ll still take a generation or two to rebuild if equipment is destroyed and the experts have all switched jobs – quite unlike other changes where Congress could reverse a tax or spending cut any time they want. Since there aren’t many scientists and most don’t vote for them, this is also desirable as an attack on a self-selected enemy with minimal political blowback.

anti-intellectualism, anti-elitism.

Competence is woke. That's why.