In 2012, SpaceX bet its Mars rocket on a fuel that had never put anything in orbit. Methane. The rest of the industry treated kerosene and hydrogen as settled questions. Thirteen years later the bet looks obvious, and the fastest follower is China. The first methane rocket ever to reach orbit was Chinese. LandSpace's Zhuque-2 got there in July 2023, ahead of SpaceX, Blue Origin, and ULA. American companies invented the race and a Beijing startup won the opening heat. Now Space Pioneer has…