Most of you guys are pretty close to the mark on this one. I did discuss this with a NASA contract engineer once who wasn't involved with shuttle but was 'in the know'. Apparently it does shallow ROD at around 6kft but the flare itself is much closer to the ground. Not even astronauts could do a continuous flare from 6k! And yes it's very much flown manually albeit in a sort of flight director following way as described above. As for the explosives lowering the gear-my own laymans thoughts would be 1.lighter than hydraulics 2. More reliable than gravity/hydraulics (especially since you only have the one shot at a landing)
