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Failed Future Forecast — they made a prediction ("The spacefaring enterprise will be associated with the US Air Force"), but then a real-life development proves that prediction wrong or otherwise extremely unlikely due to (for example) organizational changes.
The classic Failed Future Forecast was assuming the USSR would be around a lot longer than it actually ended up being. But it's just the same thing to assume the USAF would be handling space operations a lot longer than it actually ended up being.
Edited by KD
Thanks for that!
Is there a trope (or trivia item), akin to Technology Marches On, where an older work set in the future, for example attributes a spacefaring enterprise to the US Air Force, whereas we now have the US Space Force and it is a much more apt fit for such a mission (and yes I'm aware it is still kind of under the purview of the USAF, but likely as time goes on it will be seen as more distinct and specialised)? I guess an alternative which the trope could encompass would be if works made during the early days of aviation presumed that planes would always be associated only with air forces but, quite soon after it became apparent that navies could also field them (and then helicopters too) via aircraft carriers. Or, going further back, at first planes were largely operated as a corps under armies, but these nascent organisations soon rose to become their own service branches.
Edited by FlashSteps